


ghost story

by petalloso



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Neil Sees Ghosts, Slow Burn, With Multiple Twists, andrew is a ghost, ghosting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2018-11-01 18:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalloso/pseuds/petalloso
Summary: “I’d be bored to death if you died,” he says. His voice doesn't betray him. He was almost sure it would.Neil actually laughs a little, though it sounds a little weak with the damaged throat. “No, you wouldn't. I'd haunt you to make sure.”





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> :)

Nathaniel tugs lightly at the hem of his mother’s sleeve just barely within his reach. She ignores him standing there, but he says her name once and then twice, quietly like he is afraid of his own voice, and she turns to look down on him, snapping harshly. 

“What? What is it, Nathaniel?” 

Nathaniel lets his hand uncurl from her sleeve and fall back to his side, looks down at the floor and shuffles his feet nervously; they are bare and cold against the hardwood floor of his mother’s tiny, cramped office, her only sanctuary in this violent, frightening house. 

He swallows, tucks his hands neatly behind him, and rocks back and forth on his feet, searching for the words to explain. “There’s a man.” 

At first she says nothing, and Nathaniel is afraid she’s angry that he’s bothered her and he will have to go back to his room, alone. But then she speaks. 

“A man? Where?” Her voice sounds confused, and it does nothing to keep his own free from strain. 

“In my room. I thought he might be dad… but then he climbed to the ceiling.” 

His mother says nothing again, and he wonders again if he’d done the wrong thing, coming here.  _ Stop being such a child _ , she always told him, even though he never felt like anything more than small and useless and pathetic just like one.  _ You’re perfectly fine _ , she would say, hushing his tiny whimpers and wiping away the fat tears that rolled down his cheeks, freshly red with the shape of his father’s palm. 

Maybe he was meant to stay curled up in his sheets, shivering and alone, until the man floated down from the ceiling where he’d climbed up to and hurt him, but he’d been scared. And then it had moaned, loud and horrible and echoing in his ears, and Nathaniel had slipped quietly out of his bed, tiptoed with his back pressed to the wall, and went to his mother. He hadn’t known what else to do.

“Show me,” his mother finally says. Nathaniel nods and wraps his tiny fingers around the sleeve of her shirt again, guiding her back to his bedroom. 

The man is still there when he pushes the door open, and he swallows down the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to hide behind his mother’s back, because she might scold him for being weak in the face of fear, but then she grabs his shoulders and guides him there herself, her body a shield between him and the man. 

Not a man, Nathaniel thinks, peering at it from behind his mother’s back. Maybe it had once been, but now it took only the vague form of one, and it was with it’s knees on the floor, gagging and clutching at its throat, something black and grotesque oozing from inside of it. It’s mouth works up and down like it’s trying to scream, but the only noise that comes out of it are wheezing gasps, sticky and terrible. 

“Turn around,” his mother instructs him. “Don’t look.” 

So he does. He turns to face the wall and closes his eyes and stands alone when his mother walks forward and away from him. And then there is a sound like dying, a sick gurgle that makes Nathaniel want to gag instead of cry, and his mother is back beside him, telling him to open his eyes, kneeling so she can look him in the face. 

“Do you know what that was?” 

He shakes his head. His hair, a bright auburn like his father, is so long now it flops onto his forehead at the motion. She brushes it away with her fingers, but he doesn’t know if it is a reassuring thing or not. 

“It was something dead,” she tells him. 

“Like… like a ghost?” 

“Yes. Exactly like a ghost.” 

“Why did it look like that?” 

“Because it was reliving it’s death. One of your father’s men.” 

One of his father’s men? Lots of his father’s men died, Nathaniel thinks. Or at least, lots of them disappeared. He only guessed it was because they were dead. 

The most recent had been the cook. Nathaniel had liked him. He used to sneak him bits of cake and fruit from the kitchen. He must have done something terribly wrong to get his throat slashed like that. He must have made his father very angry. 

“Harvey?” he asks, remembering the name like it was yesterday that he has asked Nathaniel to call him by it instead of the more formal  _ Mr. Freedman. _

His mother nods, a solemn look in her eyes. It makes her seem soft, and Nathaniel thinks it eases some of the fear from his fast beating heart.

“I liked him,” he admits, his voice trembling.  

“I know, Nathaniel. But now he’s resting.” 

Then she grips both his arms hard, and Nathaniel smothers a startled cry of pain. The softness is gone from her eyes. She is nothing but hardness, relentless in her grasp. He focuses on her face, on her words, because that is what she taught him to do. 

“You mustn't tell anyone,” she says in a whisper bridging on frantic. “Never, ever tell anyone you can see them, Nathaniel. Do you understand?” 

He nods, because that is what she taught him to do, but he doesn’t really. His mother said  _ them _ , like there would be more, and somehow he knows then, with a certainty that scares him, that there would never be an end to the ghosts. 

And he was right. They were so many he thought his life would only ever be just that -- death. He thought it was all he would ever know. 


	2. i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo a couple notes: 
> 
> \- andrew's characterization is going to be a bit of a whoozy for me  
> \- neil knew the house was empty bc he was living in a car outside it for weeks also he's a mess  
> \- i'll probably be changing a bit of canon to fit the story later on 
> 
> tw for mentions of self harm scars, vague thoughts about suicide, blood, and injury

❝ i will come back from the dead for you. ❞  
\- richard siken 

* * *

  Being dead was more boring than being alive.

Andrew ran that thought over and over again in his head, threading his fingers through the shaggy carpet of his barren bedroom only to watch them phase through, incapable of touching anything solid, anything real.

He can’t remember how it happened. He doesn’t even recall making the conclusion that he was dead. Fingers trace the faded but noticeable scars aligning the pale skin of his forearms, but none are so deep that enough blood could have drained from him to kill, and from what he can remember about himself, he wouldn’t have taken that route out, no matter how boring it was to breathe.

He breathes in heavy and holds the air in his lungs, waiting for when his body will break the hold against his will, but a minute passes and then two, and dead people cannot die twice.

It’s been days. Or maybe weeks. Maybe longer. Time isn’t really a thing anymore, though it drained slower than Andrew would have liked. Still, he doesn’t mind the whole floating thing. He could sit cross legged on the ceiling without the blood rushing to his head, and the small jolt of fear in his stomach whenever he looked down was familiar enough to keep him grounded, to keep his head clear, at least.

He’s doing just that when a loud thud turns his gaze away from the dent in the bedroom wall, one he vaguely recalls making when his fist could actually punch something instead of just pass through. The bruises from that or something else he can’t remember still bloom across his knuckles, a rainbow of bluish purple tinged yellow at the edges from starting to heal. Andrew wonders if the colors will ever fade to the usual pallor of his skin now that he’s dead. He also wonders if he should have put his fist through his mother’s face instead of the wall, and the suddenness of the thought startles him, the first recollection he’s had of a life before death. Then he lets his body float down and phase through the floor, hanging lazily with a perfect viewpoint of the living room, which at present seems to be occupied by a clumsy, angry, and rather profusely bleeding boy.

He mumbles distractedly to himself, and though his voice is quiet Andrew recognizes in it something like panic just barely suppressed. His movements are jerky yet labored, eyes darting to every corner of the room. He is someone terrified but forcing himself not to be.

Andrew lets his gaze follow the boy as he stumbles ungracefully to the kitchen sink, leaving small smears of blood across the walls and counters as he goes. _Messy_ , he thinks. And stupid. If he was running from something like he so clearly seemed to be, he was leaving an all too obvious trail. Then again, Andrew can imagine that at the moment he might be more concerned with keeping what blood he had left instead of the trail of it he’s left behind.

He drinks like a starved animal, hunched over the counter with his stomach pressed painfully into it. Andrew runs his tongue along the inside of his bottom teeth and swallows down the dryness in his throat. He must have died thirsty. Now he was going to stay it.

The boy turns off the faucet and shoves himself forcefully away from the counter, as though if he didn’t he’d stay leaning over it and never move again. Andrew’s gaze continues to follow him, his body floating languidly along, as he opens cabinets and drawers in search of something, and stopping only when he falls over a haphazardly thrown bowl.

It would be comical, the sight of it, except the kid picks himself up again with such a pained noise Andrew wants to close his eyes and forget he ever heard it. He sounded broken. He sounded dying.

He kneels on two knees with his palms to the floor, keeping him from falling over, and then he presses one hand to his torso. When it comes away red, the boy’s expression turns distant and detached. He pauses long enough for some sense to pass through his head instead of the mindless, panicked violence he’d taken to crashing into Andrew’s home with, and then rises and stumbles forward in his search again.

He finds what he is looking for on the third turn of a doorknob, struggling to get a grip on the slippery, bloodied metal, falling to his knees in front of the sink of the bathroom, and pulling out a first aid kit from beneath it.

Andrew is surprised his useless excuse for a mother even had one. Again, the thought startles him. He can’t put a face to the woman, no matter how hard he tries to sift through his head, but he knows for certain he must have hated her. The feeling tugs at his gut uncomfortably.

The boy clutches the kit almost desperately. His shaking hands pull out gauze and antiseptic towelettes, which he leaves laying there in search for something else. He finds it, a half emptied bottle of liquor stashed away beneath the pile of blankets in Andrew’s otherwise emptied closet. Then he flops back down on the tiles of the bathroom and rustles through his own duffel, coming back up with a small sewing needle and a spool of thread.

He pulls his shirt over his head slowly, biting his lip to keep from making any sound, and Andrew observes from a distance the evidence of a life much more violent than he’d anticipated.

The boy’s skin is riddled with old scars, fresh scars, scars so new they were still an ugly red from needing more air, cuts and burns and scabs that had not yet had the chance to heal. There’s something like an imprint on his left shoulder, and a pucker of skin the opposite side like the graze of a bullet. He seems unfazed by the state of his own body.

And then he just sits there, with a towel pressed against his torso, waiting for the bleeding to slow to nothing. Andrew watches him take a long swig from the bottle, splash some over the needle and then the wound, and squeeze his eyes shut in a wince.

His fingers shake too much.

It’s shoddy work, broken skin woven clumsily back together, but the boy doesn’t seem to notice or care. His face takes on a blankness that Andrew recognizes but finds unsettling anyhow. He vaguely wishes he’d take another swig of alcohol, just so that his hands would stop shaking so much.

It’s interesting, the way needle passes through skin, the way the boy bites his lip bloody but doesn’t cry out or make any sound beyond the labored breathing, even though he is alone and no one would hear him if he cried.  Andrew floats down to watch, letting himself draw a little closer for a better view, and then the boy looks up from his work, startling them both.

The needle slips and he stabs himself. He looks back down and away from Andrew, wiping at where he’d pricked his skin like it will do any good, like it's more a pain than the actual half stitched gash on his side. All he manages to do is smear the blood worse.

Andrew’s heart stutters though, because he looked right at him, not through. He wonders if it was only a trick of the light, a stupid subconscious desire to be seen, but only long enough for the boy to finish closing the wound and look up again, and this time Andrew knows for certain. There’s no one else his next words could be for.

“Next time maybe not materialize while I’m trying to stitch closed a gaping wound?”

Andrew’s mouth pulls into a slight frown. “You see me.” He can’t quite make it a question.

The boy nods, grabbing his shirt from beside him and tugging it back on, careful around his wound. “I see all dead people.”

Interesting, Andrew thinks despite himself. Judging from his neighbors’ general lack of reaction to his presence all the times he’d tried boredly to gain it, this kid is the first to be able. Whoever he was, he was an exception to being otherwise invisible to anyone and everyone else.

When Andrew fails to reply, the boy lifts himself up from the bathroom floor, leaving his things scattered there, and walks to Andrew’s room, flopping down onto the mattress with a groan and closing his eyes. Like he doesn’t give a shit there’s a dead guy in the same vicinity. Like it’s a common occurrence.

Andrew has half a mind to turn and float somewhere far away where no living thing could bother him again, but something about the way he sinks into the bed, like it is the most relief he’s had in lifetimes, makes him linger in the room, clenching and unclenching his fists to distract himself from the boy’s painfully labored breathing.

The boy opens one eye to peer at Andrew, almost as though in response to his gaze, and then closes it lazily again. “You’re still here,” he says.

“And you’re in my bed.”

“Quite the observer you are.”

“Get out,” Andrew tells him, mostly because he’s not sure what else to say, and because suddenly the thought of someone else seeing him seems slightly more threatening than Andrew had anticipated. It shouldn’t be, but something in the boy’s eyes, however briefly they’d looked at him, screamed _knowing._

But he doesn’t move, simply shifts a little to make himself more comfortable in the sheets, likely bleeding onto them. Andrew’s brows furrow in distaste but he doesn’t go to try and force him off. He can’t anyhow. He can’t touch a single thing.

“I might bleed out if I move now,” the boy says quietly. “You don’t want a corpse rotting in your house.”

Bullshit, Andrew thinks. He’d stitched the wound up and stitched it up well. It hadn’t been so deep he couldn’t avoid a hospital. Clearly he was being a dramatic little shit. Andrew chooses to indulge him anyhow.

“What makes you think I _want_ anything?”

The boy opens his eyes then. “We would both be haunting this place. I assume you want your own territory, right?”

“Are there rules to being dead now?”

“I guess if you want there to be,” he says with a shrug. “All I know is I can see whoever is.”

“How fun,” Andrew says, clearly sarcastic, but the boy doesn’t seem to know to take it as such.

“Not really.”

_I was kidding_ , Andrew wants to say, but doesn’t. He shouldn’t care the kid’s voice sounded a little more empty than it should have denying it. He floats to the side of the bed, watching his movements carefully before floating still and parallel next to him, turned sideways with his head resting on one elbow.

He waits until the kid turns to look at him. His eyes are startlingly blue, ridiculously so, and there’s blood caked to his face and in his hair.

“You made a mess,” Andrew tells him. There’s a question somewhere in there, though he’s still not sure why he’s indulging his curiosity.

“Sorry,” the boy says, cringing at the reminder. “I… was panicked. I’ll clean it up.”

Andrew hums in acknowledgement. He knew then, that leaving the mess he had was stupid and reckless and asking for it. He was running and leaving a trail. That much was obvious. “Why this house?”

The boy shrugs, poking at his side. Andrew has a strange urge to reach out and smack his hand away. It’s not like he can, though the thought itself is uncharacteristic of him.

“It seemed empty. No one in or out for weeks. And I was in a rush.”

“Scoping the place out, are you?”

“I was in the area,” he admits. Andrew wants to ask more, but the boy’s eyes are drooping closed. He’s clearly exhausted, hadn’t even bothered to clean up the mess of blood on his face and in his hair let alone the one he’d left in the bathroom and kitchen.

“I’m not very big on sharing,” Andrew says.

“You’re dead,” the kid says, sinking lower in the mattress. “What need do you have for a bed?”

“Sentimental value.”

He sighs heavily, half relief as his head hits the pillow and half exasperation.

“Anyhow,” Andrew says with a shoo of his fingers. “You can’t stay here.” It’s a little late for that though, Andrew thinks, watching as the kid tugs a blanket up to his chin, making himself look, impossibly, even tinier and paler than he had a moment ago.

“Why not?” He asks, but he isn’t really asking for an answer. He makes no attempt to move, perfectly content just laying there, or as content as one can be with a home-stitched wound in their side.

“Because,” Andrew answers anyway. “I can already tell you’re a nuisance, and I don’t want you here.”

The boy regards him a moment, eyes searching in their gaze. Andrew doesn’t look away.

“Then what can I give you to let me stay?”

Andrew almost laughs at the bluntness of it, though it shouldn’t surprise him. The way the boy says it makes Andrew want to give it over for free, a feeling he suppresses as soon as it emerges. That wasn’t how it worked. Nothing in life was free. Even dead and technically without a life at all, he wasn’t about to start making it.

Andrew holds his gaze. The boy looks calm, but his jaw is clenched and his hands grip the sheets like he is holding to something he can’t afford to give away, and Andrew wonders:

“Do you even have anything to give?”

He pouts at the question, and immediately it makes him look younger, or maybe the age he actually was. He looks at a loss for an answer though, and Andrew feels a laugh catch in his throat realizing it, half cruel half amused. It feels strange to choke down laugher. It feels strange to have the urge to laugh in the first place, albeit maliciously.

“Of course I do,” he says at length. Good at lying, it seems, and from the confidence in his voice to himself too. Andrew didn’t think he’d relent to the curiosity, but he’s bored, so he blames it on that.

“Your name then.”

He raises an eyebrow at the seeming mediocrity of the request. Still, when he opens his mouth, he hesitates briefly, just barely, but enough that Andrew definitely notices.  

“Neil.”

Andrew sounds the name aloud. It’s fitting for his face, he thinks. A pretty name, easy to roll of his tongue.

“Neil what?”

“Josten,” he answers, this time with no hesitance at all.

“Well, _Neil Josten_. You can stay.” Andrew catches the flash of relief on his face as his eyes droop further closed. “I’ll think of something more you can give for our little exchange later.”

Neil nods. “Alright,” is all he says, before finally allowing his eyes to close entirely and twisting his body too get comfortable, rather too violently considering his wound.

He peers at Andrew one last time and hesitates briefly before speaking. “Goodnight, um…”

“Andrew.”

“Goodnight, Andrew,” Neil says, and then promptly falls asleep. Andrew peers at the now unmoving lump, floats away to a corner, and closes his eyes, wondering again about the exact circumstances that being dead pertained.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh hh hhh thank u for reading let me know what u think x


	3. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more of a filler chapter than anything. also a lot of this is lazy writing in terms of detail (ie i make things convenient for myself to write) apologies

Apparently dead people can’t sleep. Which was fine. Andrew never slept well alive either. At least now he’d not have nightmares.

It seems Neil does though, and bad ones at that. Andrew ignores it at first, but Neil talks in his sleep, and though at first he can’t quite make out the words, they grow louder and more frightened the later the night gets. He starts moving around in his sheets, and Andrew can’t help but think of his stitches reopening and him bleeding out.

He knows logically there was hardly a thing he could do if Neil stopped breathing, that he could not pump air back into his lungs because he himself didn’t have any, or call for help or even provide a comforting touch, but hearing his quiet whimpers and reliving of something that sounded a lot like torture set his own nerves on edge. So he floats over to him and settles a few feet away.

“Hey,” he says roughly. “Wake up.”

He doesn’t, so Andrew says his name once and then twice and then a few more times, each a little more laced with panic until, finally, Neil wakes without so much as a jerk.

He peers at Andrew silently, hair stuck to his forehead with nervous sweat and chest rising too fast. His eyes are annoyingly blue, almost glowing in the dark, and they seem to bore into Andrew’s face as though the sight of him is the only thing anchoring him to the present and keeping him from slipping back into whatever memory he’d been dreaming of. Andrew quickly looks away.

“You’ll get blood on my sheets,” he tells him.

It works to rid Neil of that lost, panicked expression, which Andrew is grateful for despite himself. Neil’s eyes narrow and his brows pinch together in a scowl.

“It’s not like you need them anymore.”

“They’re still mine.”

Neil scoffs but otherwise ignores him in favor of falling out of bed. He likely hadn’t meant to go sprawling to the floor, Andrew thinks, but he’s still clearly disoriented from the nightmare. He rises fast, wraps the blanket around his shoulders like a cape, and walks to the bathroom to rinse his face. Then he rests two palms down on the counter, stares at his reflection, and tugs at his roots, inspecting them closely. He doesn’t seem to like what he sees.

Neil lets his hair fall flat and tugs his shirt up, pulling at the stitches to test how well they hold. When he's satisfied that they're fine, he grabs his duffel from the bedroom and heads downstairs. Andrew follows.

“Where are you going?”

“I need food,” Neil says as he pulls on his shoes. “And hair dye.”

So the muddy brown wasn't natural. He'd suspected. He tilts his head to the side in question. “You don't look the type to care about appearance.”

Neil disregards that accusation. “Are you going to follow me everywhere now?”

Andrew shrugs his shoulders exaggeratedly. “I’m bored. You’re more interesting than this house anyhow.”

“Fine,” Neil says, like it’s anything but. He walks to the front door, opens it, and takes a step out, and then seems to pause as if reevaluating his decision to leave the vicinity. The hesitance passes quickly though. Andrew laughs when Neil trips on the last step of the porch, earning him a glare.

The sky is still dark, too early in the morning for it to have turned yet. Neil shivers at a slight breeze and hugs his bag closer. He scans the block carefully, decides it’s safe, and starts on his way.

Andrew floats above and behind him in silence, testing how high he can go from the ground before his fear of heights inevitably tugs him back down. Evidently, it’s not that much. He gives up for the moment in favor of sidling up to Neil, who is walking too fast, eyes still scanning the empty streets like he’s afraid something or someone might pop up out of nowhere.

“What?” Neil asks, likely tired of the silence.

“What are you running from?” Andrew asks.

Neil stiffens ever so slightly. Andrew knows immediately then his next words will either be a lie or an evasion. Or both.

“Nothing,” he says.

“The darting eyes and general hyper awareness speak of something different.”

Neil’s eyes flicker towards him, assessing. “I’m not running,” he says, and then, as if it makes all the difference in the world, “I’m hiding.”

Andrew leaves it at that, though he can’t deny his curiosity is sky high. He has a feeling that prying might shut Neil’s mouth up for good. Though it wasn’t like Andrew could do anything with whatever answers he could get out of him, not dead.

Neil’s injuries seem to slow him after a few blocks. He walks slower for a few minutes or so until he’s out of the neighborhood, and then another ten until a bright neon sign appears in the distance, advertising the store’s sale.

There’s only one cashier on duty this early in the morning, and from the looks of him he’s about to fall asleep standing up. Neil doesn’t announce his presence, and the swish of the automatic doors doesn’t so much as earn him a glance.

Neil grabs a basket and roams the empty aisles. Andrew finds his choice of food peculiar -- it consisted mostly of canned fruits and vegetables, dried meat, and energy drinks. Instant foods, the stuff you grabbed on the go and didn’t stop to eat. He makes his way to the cosmetics aisle and throws hair dye, shampoo, and deodorant in the basket, stops for over-the-counter painkillers on his way to the front, and places his collection in front of the cashier.

“Forty six ninety five,” the cashier tells him, still half asleep. Neil hands him the money, and just as he is about to grab his bag, a woman walks in, young, pretty, and dressed for work.

Her eyes travel to Neil and stay there. Andrew can almost feel the way Neil stiffens beside him and the way his breath catches ever so slightly. She smiles at him, and Andrew is just about to roll his eyes when Neil clutches his bags tightly, and sprints out of the store faster than Andrew can even register he’s gone.

He doesn’t stop, not until he’s a block or two down the street, and then he crouches around the corner, knees to his chest, his bags strewn beside him. Andrew watches as he struggles to regain his breath. He kicks at Neil’s shoe, but it only passes through as usual, and he’s struck with a sudden desire to do more than just stare and wait.

After too long, Neil gets up.

“You’re bleeding,” Andrew observes, pointing to his side. Neil looks down at the blood through his shirt. It seems to take him a moment to register.  

“Must’ve pulled the stitches,” he mumbles.

“Maybe it was all that running from nothing.”

“I can’t take my chances,” Neil tells him, unfazed. He picks up his bags.

“She was only checking you out, Neil.”

“Doing what?”

“She liked your face.”

Neil frowns. “Why would she like my face?”

Andrew tilts his head to the side and studies him to see if he’s joking, if he’s truly that oblivious, but Neil’s expression is blank and confused.

“Distracting,” he answers simply. He doesn’t elaborate, but Neil’s expression seems to relax at the answer, so it’s good enough.

“I should work on that,” he says, more to himself than to Andrew. And then he starts walking quickly home, Andrew following.

The sun is peeking out by the time they arrive. Neil seems in a hurry to get back inside. A shame, really. The sky was turning a faint pink, and Andrew wouldn’t have minded watching it turn a morning blue. He follows Neil inside anyhow, phasing through the door when Neil rudely closes it behind him without waiting.

Neil is stupid in the kitchen, though Andrew shouldn’t be surprised. He cuts a finger trying to open a can of peaches, uses a whole one square of tissue to clean up spilled water, and accidently breaks a glass on the counter. Andrew can’t quite wrap his mind around how someone who has, as evident by all the scars on his body, survived countless life threatening situations, also be so impossibly clumsy.

Then again, Neil probably hasn’t been in a kitchen long enough to use it. Andrew has to tell him which buttons to press on the microwave. He leaves a metal spoon in it.

He makes himself perfectly comfortable on the sofa with a can of measly vegetables in hand. He sets it down when he’s finished, sprawls his legs out to stretch, and looks up at Andrew, who sits on the ceiling again with his hair dangling towards the floor.

“What about you?” He says, like no time has passed at all since the end of Andrew’s last inquiry.

“What about me?”

“Why are you…” Neil pauses to wave his arms around. “Why stay in this house? Are you waiting for someone to come back?”

Andrew considers the question. The truth was he didn’t entirely know. He didn’t know if it was his general habitual laziness that kept him from venturing anywhere further than the few blocks outside the neighborhood or if he stayed because he felt some sort of connection to the house. He didn’t know if he could leave permanently at all, even if he wanted to. Maybe dead people were tied to places without choosing to be.

“Why would I be waiting for anyone?” He says instead.

Neil shrugs, though he likely knows more than he’s letting on. “I don’t know. I guess ghosts usually stick around for a reason, and you’ve been here for who knows how long. So I just figured that you might be waiting for someone to come back.”

Andrew takes a moment to think about it. It made sense, and Neil was probably more versed in the rules of being dead than Andrew was, considering his ability. But he can’t quite make his brain agree with the idea of waiting for someone. That would imply he cared. And if he did, then he’d remember who for, wouldn’t he?

When Andrew fails to answer right away, Neil gets up from the sofa to wash off the blood he’d left on the walls and counters in his frenzy yesterday. Then he goes about searching the house.

The state of it is strange, now that Andrew thinks of it. It's empty of anything personal, anything that might indicate who had once lived here, but the furniture still occupies every room. There are blankets and towels folded neatly in the closets, simple decor, dishes and utensils in the drawers of the kitchen. Like someone had just up and left but taken anything with any sentimental value with them. Perfect for living, but no one living seemed to live in it.

“What are you even looking for?”

Neil at present is attempting to wiggle out from under the bed he'd gotten himself stuck under. He's small and smaller from lack of food, so it doesn't take long, but when he comes back up his hair is tousled and his expression defeated.

“A weapon.”

Typical. “What makes you think there'd be one in here?”

Neil frowns like the question doesn't make sense and then fixes Andrew with a knowing look. “You just seem the type to carry,” he says, likes it’s an obvious conclusion to make.

Andrew scoffs but doesn't disagree. “Check in the mattress,” he says with a shrug. It's a guess. He's pretty sure he's right though.

Neil lifts the sheets and searches a moment until his fingers find a slit in the mattress, cut ragged with a knife. He reaches in and comes out with two sharpened pocket knifes, a lighter, and an old faded photo.

“It’s you,” Neil says, setting the other findings aside to hold the photo in both hands. Andrew hovers over his shoulder to see.

It is him. There’s no denying it. Andrew goes to grab it from Neil before remembering he can’t and retracting his hand. Neil holds it up higher so he can see better.

A boy looks into the camera, face younger than Andrew’s is now but hair the same light shade of blond, eyes undeniably hazel and as empty as Andrew knew his own to be. Still, there was something about the way he held himself that Andrew didn’t entirely recognize.

Andrew nods towards the knives so he doesn’t have to look at the picture anymore, and Neil places them safely on the bed. He picks the first one up and flips it open, testing the sharpness of it with a fingertip at the blade.

“Keep them,” Andrew tells him. Neil looks up at him and nods, smiling gratefully, but he doesn’t keep them on him, instead placing them away in his duffel. Andrew didn’t know what good a weapon would do if it was hidden in a bag when you needed it, but he didn’t question it.

#

Neil spends the rest of the day making himself perfectly comfortable. He moves around too much considering his injury, knees giving out more than once and wound leaking blood when he accidentally pulls the stitches again. He lets the cuts riddling his torso air out, dumps trail mix into a bowl, and goes to sit fully clothed in the bathtub to eat his sad excuse for dinner.

He doesn’t leave the house though. And despite his general comfortable habitation of it, he does little to spread out, keeping what little belongings he has safe in the small duffle, which catches Andrew’s eye more than once but that he can’t do anything about with being able to open it. Which he cannot without asking, which he won’t. Not yet at least.

Andrew doesn’t leave either. He floats around, aimless and bored, staring at walls and at wilting plants and venturing the few blocks around the neighborhood. Never further though. He didn’t want to risk forgetting where to come back to.

Neil doesn’t sleep that night. Instead he climbs out the window of Andrew’s bedroom and onto the roof, sitting like he might make himself as small as possible with his knees tucked to his chest and his neck craned towards the sky. It’s late enough that everyone is sleeping, so no one will see his silhouette perched atop the house.

Andrew floats upwards, and watches from above as Neil gets smaller and smaller until he can’t see the look of weariness on his gaunt face, empty and tired and all too wrong for someone so seemingly young, until his mind goes static and his stomach fills with angry butterflies, and then he floats back down.

He likes floating. It wasn’t flying and it wasn’t falling. It sent chills down every nerve in his body, and Andrew knew the feeling was something he’d craved when he was alive, because it was at least something amidst the emptiness of everything else. He liked it, but it terrified him, the lengths to which he wanted to go. He wanted to pass through clouds like he passed through everything else. He wanted to feel the tickle of air on his skin.

“Why do you go so high up?” Neil asks once Andrew is beside him again.

“Would you?” Andrew asks in favor of answering. He thinks of being alive, of grabbing onto the leaves of a branch of a tree whose roots travel deep into the soil of the earth. He wonders if he would stop himself from falling into the sky.

“No,” Neil says. “Staying grounded is the only way to stay afloat.”

“Is that supposed to be clever?”

“It’s just the truth.” He pauses. “So why do it?”

“To feel,” Andrew answers this time. Neil doesn’t ask for an explanation. Maybe he knows that’s all Andrew can remember for a reason why.

At the sight of the sunrise, Neil finally goes back inside. Andrew doesn’t follow. Instead he tries again to float as high up as he can. He gets a little further this time, high enough that his body passes through a low hanging cloud but not further. He pretends he can feel the moisture of it settling onto his skin. It’s not quite enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thank u so so much for reading x


	4. eva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is the first one of these and i think i should explain
> 
> basically this doesn't even really count as a chapter. the short updates with actual titles to them will be flashbacks (both neil's and andrew's). they have relevance to the plot later on but they really don't make any sense yet. i hope it won't be too confusing since it's switching between past and present (not often but still), but they give a little insight into the story too

Nathaniel grows used to the voices. 

Some of them are loud. They scream and yell like they can’t stop remembering how they died. Others are quieter, whispering to themselves and curled up in the corner. Sometimes they murmur the same words again and again like they are the last and only ones they remember.

Some of them know they are dead. Some of them don’t. Nathaniel is never sure which he preferred. They were always confused and angry no matter. 

She was different, though. 

It was almost like she’d wanted to die. This was a new concept for him. Nathaniel knew death well, but he’d never craved it. He was always escaping it however he could. 

She wakes him with his name. He startles awake and looks at her and says hello because he’s not sure what else to. 

“You’re cute,” she says with a smile. “I like you.” 

“Who are you?” Neil asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

“Eva. Your father killed me.” 

“I… what?” 

She tilts her head and smiles. “Don’t tell me you don’t know he’s a murderer.” 

“No, I do. I just… I didn’t think… You’re not his usual, you know…” 

“You mean he only kills whoever gets in his way. The men that betray him. The ones that threaten his empire.” 

“Yeah.” 

She smiles again and tosses her ponytail over her shoulder. “I think he just got bored to be completely honest. He had fun with it.” 

As his eyes adjust to the dark Neil can start to see what she means. Though her face is without a scratch on it, blood leaks through every part of her dress and colors it a dark rusty red. Her skin, where he can see it, is flayed off. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. But I do have a favor to ask.” 

“Anything,” he says. He feels bad for what his father has done to her. Though he tries to tell himself he’s not like him, and that it’s not his fault, it’s harder to believe that when ghosts like her show up. 

He should have said no, though. He should have forced her away. 


	5. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> povs are all over the place i am sorry 
> 
> tw for vague references to self harm and suicide

“You could go out to buy something you know.” Neil sits cross legged on the floor of the living room, shirt off so his wounds can air out and with a few maps scattered around him. His stomach growls loudly. 

“I can't risk your neighbors seeing me too often.” 

“You went out the other day,” Andrew reminds him. 

“It was four in the morning. They weren’t going to spot me.” 

“If the neighbors knew me, they don’t anymore. You’re just a new tenant to them.” 

Neil shrugs but doesn’t disagree. Andrew lets him be in silence, but even while Neil tries to focus on studying the routes of the city, he finds himself distracted by watching Andrew, who doesn’t seem to pay much mind to the attention. 

Andrew didn’t make sense. 

Neil recognized that he was empty in ways that couldn’t be fixed, as evident by the hollow look in his eyes and the endless wandering, and that he’d been that way before death, but he was also the most alive dead person Neil had ever encountered. 

Something about him wasn’t right, and it irked Neil. He claimed his attachment to Neil was a result of boredom, which Neil could understand given the circumstances, and part of him believed it was true, but there was something more too; it was as though Andrew was picking him apart sometimes, as though he’d taken to solving Neil like a puzzle in some attempt to keep himself in the present, or as present as a dead person could be. 

Even with years of experience in dead people, Neil still wasn’t quite certain how hauntings worked, but Andrew seemed at once detached from the house and entirely unable to travel further than the few blocks around it, unless of course he was with Neil. That too was new. Neil had never known a ghost to haunt a  _ person _ instead of a place, and with an apathy to the fact that was far too contradictory to it, but Andrew seemed to be doing just that. 

He couldn’t say he minded, though he knew he should. Company, however silent or unalive, it was nice, and Neil though reluctant to admit still felt lonely since his mother had died. 

He blinks away the beginnings of tears at the unwelcome memory of her and hopes Andrew is too busy twirling around in circles to notice. 

No such luck. Andrew is beside him in a heartbeat, peering down with curious hazel eyes. They’re too bright for a dead person. Everything about him is too much for a dead person. “What’s wrong?” He asks, not a show of comfort, just a question asked in boredom. 

“Nothing.” 

“Liar,” Andrew says blankly. He twirls and and the sleeves of his shirt swish a little at the motion, revealing a patch of pale, scarred skin. 

“Hey,” Neil says, suddenly curious. “How did you die?” 

“Don’t know,” Andrew says honestly. 

Neil points to his arms. “How do you know that’s not how?” 

Andrew stops moving. He seems to take a minute to consider whatever is behind the question, though Neil thinks he’s been clear enough. Maybe he’s just trying to decide if he wants to grace him with a reply. 

“I wouldn’t have,” he says finally. 

“What, you have some sort of moral compass?” 

“No. I just had promises to keep.” A truth that, from the flicker of surprise on Andrew’s face, there and then gone again, is a reveal for the both of them. “Tell me something,” Andrew says after a brief moment. 

“Why should I?” 

“Because I just did.” 

Neil almost smiles. “Is that how this is going to work? Truth for truth?” 

“Yes.” 

“Alright. What kind of something?” 

Andrew shrugs and shifts so his feet face the ceiling and his blond hair dangles from his head. His face remains the same shade, no blood rushing to redden it, but looking at him Neil can’t help but think that if he reached out his hand would make contact instead of pass through. 

“Like anything,” Andrew says. “Like when did you know?” 

Neil runs a hand through his hair, likely making it stick up worse. Andrew follows the motion with his eyes and then plants them firmly on Neil’s face. Neil lets out a tiny sigh. 

“I was four, I think. Just around the time by father started using knives on me instead of just his hands. One of the cooks… he killed him. Slit his throat.” 

He pauses. He feels a little detached, his voice dull, but when he looks up at Andrew, Andrew doesn’t look regretful for having coaxed the memory out of Neil. He doesn’t really look anything at all. His expression is blank, his eyes clear. Somehow it makes it easier to speak.  

“He came into my room. I thought it was my father, coming in to teach me a lesson, but it wasn’t. And he looked… just,  _ so _ dead. Black and oozing everywhere. He was trying to scream. And I don’t know if it was just that he was dead or that his throat was slit, but he couldn’t. So I went to my mom and she got rid of him and then she told me to never let anyone know what I could see.

“Part of me thinks my father already knew and was just biding his time. My mom could see them, and he knew she could, but I let it slip anyway, even though she warned me not to. There was this girl he’d murdered. She asked me to get something for her. It was stupid of me to say yes, because he figured it out and didn’t have any reason to hold back anymore. This one,” Neil says, pointing to an ugly scar on his forearm, “was because I couldn’t get information out of one of the men he’d killed. It just got worse from there. So she took me and ran.” 

“Your mom.” 

Neil nods. 

“Where is she now?” 

“Dead,” Neil says. It’s the first time he’s said it aloud, and the word burns in his throat and in his eyes. He hadn’t had anyone to tell of her death anyway, nothing to do but grieve her alone, confused and relieved and hating himself for it.

“Did you see her? After?” 

“No.” 

“Why?” 

Neil sighs. His chest hurts. “Dead people only stick around if they have unfinished business, or if one of us who can see them forces them to. I guess she’d had enough of keeping me alive.” 

The thought stung, but he knew it was true. She was dead and hadn’t had anything to stay in this world for, not even him. Realizing that, sitting beside her bleeding corpse and waiting for her to speak to him even in death but refusing to reach out and forcibly keep her there, Neil thought it might have been the worse day of his life. 

He’d tried dragging her body out but couldn’t, and so dropped a match and stood there watching the only person in his life burn to nothing. 

And then he’d ran, squatting in cars and sleeping underneath bridges and doing whatever it took to stay alive. And now he was here, and Andrew was watching him with eyes that were almost concerned, his mouth moving up and down like he was saying something except that Neil couldn’t hear. He tried putting a hand to Neil’s neck, and Neil could almost feel the touch settling there, but in the end it simply passed through like they both knew it would. Andrew had simply forgotten. 

“Neil,” he says. “You back with me?” 

“Where’d I go?” Neil says with a weary smile, and he can visibly see the slight sagging of Andrew’s tensed shoulders, the tiny exhale from his lips. He turns away once his eyes scan over Neil’s face. 

“You could have told me if the question was too much.” 

“I wanted to answer it. I think… I mean I feel better. You’re the first person I’ve told.” 

Andrew looks back at him, though there is nothing to read in his expression. “Have you really been alone this entire time?” 

“Yes.” When Andrew hums in acknowledgement, Neil smiles. “It doesn’t look like I am anymore, though. You’re clinginess is almost endearing.” 

Andrew glares at him but doesn’t bother with a retort. He stays though, and Neil hides another smile in the palm of his hand, leaning forward to resume studying the maps even while his mind wanders elsewhere, mainly to the ghost who doesn’t let his gaze wander from Neil in the slightest. 

#

Neil leaves the house only after he’s skipped one too many meals, albeit reluctantly. 

He complains the entire way, mumbling and grumbling about the annoyance that is a human’s need for food, but though his pallor has improved since the first day, pinker cheeks and all, and his previously gaunt face has filled out some, he’s still skin and bone, paper thin and breakable looking. 

He doesn’t bother putting anything away once he’s home, opting instead to dump it all on the counter, rummage around for a can of peaches, and go immedietely to flop back down where he’s scattered all his papers. 

“What are you doing?” Andrew asks, hovering over Neil’s shoulder as Neil searches for something in particular and finds it, holding it up with overzealous triumph. 

“Trying to figure out how I can start school.”

“School. What for?” 

Neil shrugs. “You were right. Hiding out is getting old. So long as I stay inconspicuous people won’t pay too much mind to a new kid.” The paper in his hand proves his residence in the city, and it’s remarkably well forged. 

“Where’d you get that?” 

“Columbia was the next place on the list. Mom had everything sorted out before she died. I can use these for a while before it’s time to move again.” 

“When do you start?” 

“As soon as I can.” 

#

The school is familiar, thought not in any welcoming way. Andrew trails after Neil, who’s walking slowly as it is, and scans the crowd of barely awake students for anything to warn Neil about, knowing he’s likely doing the same. There’s nothing, just a mass of harmless kids he couldn’t have cared less about dead or alive, though ahead of him he can sense Neil is still cautious and hesitant. He floats to keep pace beside him. His hand is clutching the strap of his duffel so tightly the knuckles have gone white. 

“You’re as safe as you’re going to get here,” he says. It’s true. The crowd makes anonymity easy. There’s nothing about these high school kids that screams any kind of danger, except maybe the few that are too impatient or else inflicted with too large egos to walk around Neil instead of bumping into him on their way past. Even if he needed to run, it’d be easy to get lost, easy to blend in. That is until the bell rings. Neil startles. 

“I guess I should find my first class,” Neil says. From the sound of his voice it seems he needs some nudging along though. Andrew sighs, hovers over the paper clutched in his hand, and scans the page. 

“Calculus. Room 112. Straight and to the left, all the way down the hall.” 

Neil blinks and turns to look at him before remembering Andrew is invisible to everyone else and turning back away. But there’s something like happiness in his expression. Andrew can’t for the death of him understand  _ why,  _ then he realizes he’s just given directions he shouldn’t know, and he almost scoffs at Neil’s reaction. 

“You went here then. You remember something.” 

“Seems so.” 

“Maybe someone knew you.” 

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Andrew says, then taps an imaginary clock on his wrist. “You’re going to be late. Better get going.” 

#

Neil is, of course, late. 

He enters the room quietly and discreetly, but everyone is already seated and turning to watch his entrance. He tenses at their stares, body rigid and uncomfortable at the attention. 

“Name?” The teacher asks. Neil blinks and turns to her. He doesn’t hesitate to answer though. 

“Neil Josten.” 

“Have a seat, Neil. Try to arrive on time next class, please,” the woman says, looking away to check his name off the attendance. Neil nods and hugs his duffel, making his way to the only remaining seat at the back of the room, next to an open window. Andrew follows behind. 

“Okay,” the teacher says, rising from her chair to stand center of the class. “Derivatives. Let’s get started.” 

#

Andrew leaves Neil alone for most of the class, though there’s not much to do in lieu of Neil’s company. He wanders in and out of the hallways, studying posters on the walls and scuff marks on the floors and occasionally observing another class. He always wanders back to Neil though, and hovers over his shoulder every now and then to check his work, pointing out mistakes and watching Neil cross the numbers out instead of using the perfectly good eraser, fixing them and smiling all stupid gratitude at Andrew, who mostly can’t deal with that look on his face but finds himself correcting his work anyway, and then looking for the smile. It’s always there. 

Neil is a quick learner though. Andrew supposes he must have to be. And he seems to genuinely be enjoying himself, so he doesn’t need Andrew’s help for too long. Andrew lounges by the window for the last twenty minutes instead, watching Neil work until the bell rings 

Outside of class, Neil is oddly cheery. Maybe not  _ oddly, _ Andrew thinks, but it’s a rare mood for him. He thinks it shouldn’t be. Neil should always be this way. That school is the reason for it should be weird, but he supposes someone as deprived as Neil of normal life experiences makes it understandable. He is, of course, still blending in, quiet and unassuming and doing nothing to call attention to himself. 

He passes by a shelf of school pamphlets and stops walking so suddenly Andrew almost goes right through him. He plucks one from the shelf and opens it gingerly, scanning the pages with forcibly subdued interest. 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for an Exy fan,” Andrew says. 

“I’m… not really,” Neil says, quietly so he doesn’t appear to be talking to himself. Andrew knows it’s a lie as soon as he says it. He can tell from the spark of interest in his eyes, contradicting the flippant way he’s holding the pamphlet. “I played in little league. It was fun, I think.”

“So try it out again,” Andrew says, if only just to get Neil to move down the hall. He was going to be late again. 

“I can’t,” Neil says, though it’s clear in his voice how badly he wants to. Andrew’s not about to argue with Neil when his own head is at odds with himself, not right now. He shouldn’t care at all what Neil does with his time. Still: 

“Take it with you. Decide later.” 

It seems a reasonable compromise for him, one he’s willing to accept at least, because he nods and stuffs it in his pocket for later, before hurrying away to his next class. 

He is, as Andrew predicted, late. 

#

At home, Neil obsesses over the piece of paper outlining practice times and requirements until Andrew can no longer stand it. 

“Just try out.” 

“I can’t,” Neil says for the hundredth time that day. 

“Why not?” 

“My mom, if she were alive she’d kill me for even thinking about it.” 

As far as Andrew was concerned it was a weak excuse. 

“She’s not alive.” 

“That’s hardly the point. She was right. Playing Exy would bring too much unwanted attention to me.” 

Andrew was hardly one to spout life advice, especially given his current physical circumstances, but he didn’t think Neil hiding out and laying low and avoiding all human contact qualified as living, not really. 

“You can’t keep living by a dead woman’s rules. If you’re careful, you’ll be fine.” 

“Careful.” 

“Yes,  _ careful _ ,” Andrew says impatiently. “Play average. Don’t stand out. Don’t give them a reason to look at you. You’ll blend in more doing something extra anyhow. All kids do nowadays. They pay more attention to the ones that don’t do anything at all.” 

Neil seems to think about it. Andrew lets him be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok maybe someone can help me with this actually? (KIND OF SPOILERS THO) so i (lazily) scoured the series for canon info and what i got was that aaron and tilda lived in san jose, and andrew lived in oakland. so i assumed that after juvie andrew moved in with them in san jose, which is what i went by. but i am not certain that's true? if it's not pls let me know 
> 
> and thank you for reading <3 pacing is a killer for me but i'm happy for anyone sticking with this mess


	6. iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo again

Neil holds his new uniform gently in his hands and stares at it. Andrew thinks it might be too small for him even though it was the smallest size. It’s dark purple and white, the school’s colors, and has a number ten on the back. The number is fitting, Andrew thinks, though he can’t figure for what reason. 

Neil seems to have a tendency for broodily staring into the distance, or in this particular case at a piece of fabric, and subsequently falling into an existential crisis. It’s been at least a minute and probably nearing on an emotional breakdown, so Andrew snaps his fingers in front of his face and tells him to get hurrying. Neil says nothing but shoots him an irritated scowl before hiding in the stall to change, though everyone is already out on the field. Andrew waits outside the door. 

“You didn’t seem to care that I saw what’s underneath your shirt.” 

“No,” Neil agrees, his voice slightly muffled through the door. He sounds a little strained, like maybe he’d gotten stuck in the shirt, which is a likely possibility considering him. “I mean, it was kind of a dire circumstance if you recall. I don’t usually… I’m not used to people seeing me. But you’re dead, so your questions about it don’t really matter.” 

Andrew actually lets out a huff of laughter at Neil’s bluntness. “Gee, thanks.” 

Neil emerges then, slightly sheepish and fully uniformed. “Sorry. You know what I mean.” 

Andrew shrugs, scanning Neil’s body now that he’s wearing something other than his usual baggy, threadbare t-shirts and faded jeans. He still looks too skinny, and Andrew was right about the uniform being a little too loose, but it’s an improvement he can appreciate. “Sure.” 

Neil doesn’t seem to notice Andrew eyeing him, instead simply walks past him for his gear, pulling the first piece over his head and to his chest and tightening the fit. His hands fasten too smoothly and naturally for him to be a new player, but no one is there to notice anyhow, and likely wouldn’t care if they were. 

“Wish me luck?” Neil asks with a grin once he’s all fitted for practice. Andrew rolls his eyes. 

“Do you even believe in it?” 

“No,” Neil says too quickly, though his grin doesn’t fade from his face. “But I’ll take what I can get.” 

#

Neil is good at pretending he has no idea what he’s doing. He listens attentively, though that’s probably not a part of the act, and plays like an amateur, though Andrew supposes years without having played helped with that, too. He’s clumsy and uncoordinated and easily agitated, and more than once picks fights with the other boys on the team, though from Andrew’s distance he can’t make out over what.

But he’s different than the rest too, and though Andrew couldn’t have cared less about Exy, he thought watching the way Neil played might, in time, teach him how to. 

He played like nothing else in the world mattered, like he’d forgotten about living to survive, or like this was survival itself. His face was furrowed and serious, his body running itself ragged and not yet learned in how to pace itself. He played almost like he was holding his breath, but like it was breathing itself, like every step was deliberate because every step was fought for. 

He also tripped a lot. 

But every time he tossed a successful pass or shot a goal he stopped and searched for Andrew in the empty bleachers, finding him in a second and flashing him a fast and bright smile that Andrew could see even through the helmet hiding his face. He didn’t smile back, or really react to it at all, but he didn’t turn away, and Neil seemed to take that as something enough, because after the third or fourth time he turned away and back to the game with the smile still stuck on his face for a long time after and a new burst of impossible energy. 

Andrew meets him in the locker room after the two hour practice and waits with him for the others to leave. They give him lingering, curious looks at his reluctance to shower with them, but none are curious enough to ask why, and he can tell Neil is relieved for it. 

When Neil emerges from the shower he looks more content than Andrew has seen him before, his cheeks a ruddy pink from the exertion of practice and a hot shower, hair messier than ever and falling, long and dark, into his face. His roots are showing. He never did use that hair dye he’s been so adamant on getting. 

Andrew watches a droplet of water trickle down from his forehead and off his chin. He watches another travel down from his collarbone to his chest. And then he thinks Neil is far too gaunt and skinny and should eat more. And then he turns away to give him more privacy to change. If his face is just a little too matching of the shade of Neil’s, he isn’t about to think about it, and Neil, oblivious as he is (or as Andrew hopes he is), isn’t about to notice. 

Neil takes the long way home. His hands are hidden in the sleeves of an oversized Exy jersey with his number embroidered on the back, his duffel swung over his shoulder and his laces characteristically untied. Andrew floats beside him, twirling and turning to a tune that Neil’s took to humming, soft and content and just a little off key. 

After a few minutes he stops humming but continues walking, then turns to Andrew says, a little awkwardly but genuine, “practice was fun.” 

“You seemed to enjoy it," Andrew agrees. 

Neil looks away. “Yeah, I did. I mean, the other guys aren’t exactly nice, but they aren’t mean, and they don’t really care enough about me to ask questions.”

“You should probably refrain from picking fights with every single one of them, if you’d rather it stay that way.” Neil grimaces but doesn’t deny that's what happened, prompting Andrew to continue talking. “You know, for someone who wants to stay off the radar, you seemed pretty trigger-happy during practice. Is that gonna make a reappearance or were you just in a pissy mood before?” 

“I don’t… I wasn’t in a  _ pissy mood.  _ I was nervous.” 

“Are you still nervous?” 

Neil shrugs and steps over a root cracking the sidewalk. “Yes. This is still risky. But I’m willing to try and make it work.” 

“You’re welcome,” Andrew says. He doesn’t mean it seriously, but Neil stops walking and looks at him. His face is laid bare, and it almost startles him, the seriousness in his expression. 

“Thank you, Andrew. I probably wouldn’t have tried out if you hadn’t bullied me into it.”

Andrew doesn’t know what to say to that kind of honesty, so he doesn’t say anything. He looks away and continues floating down the sidewalk, and somehow he knows Neil is probably smiling some stupid cheeky smile behind him, but he says nothing either. 

“‘Bullied,’” Andrew scoffs after a while. “It was more helpful and supportive encouragement.” Neil laughs, light and carefree. 

“I guess it could be called that, too.” 

At home, Neil collapses onto the coach as soon as he’s through the door. Andrew sighs and tells him to get up and actually eat something for once, and though Neil grumbles into the pillow for several minutes, he eventually gives in to Andrew, or more likely to the angry grumbling of his stomach, and throws something in the microwave. 

He falls asleep early that night, and rustles only a little but doesn’t wake to any nightmares. Andrew is used to nights alone, but for the first time in a while, even with Neil sound asleep, he feels anything but. 

#

Days become a kind of routine. Neil wakes up and goes to school like a normal kid and then plays Exy afterwards like a normal kid, sans the obsessive fanaticism for the sport. He occasionally buys food and (less) occasionally eats it, lazes around like a normal kid, and sleeps like a normal kid, with occasional but becoming less frequent nightmares. And because Andrew has nothing better to do, he follows him around the entire time. 

Neil is laying in bed with his hands crossed over his chest, staring at the ceiling like it has all the answers to the universe, when he says Andrew’s name, so softly Andrew almost can’t hear the first part of it, and it comes out more like “'drew,'" which Andrew decides much quicker than he would have liked to admit he doesn't mind too much at all. 

“Hm?” 

“Do you remember anything yet?” 

“No.” He waits a moment. “Why?” 

“Dunno. I guess it’s unusual. You’ve been here longer than any other spirit I’ve met, and usually there would be a reason.” 

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting?” 

“For a reason.” 

Neil nods like he understands, and Andrew is almost grateful for the easy acceptance. He himself doesn't really know what he meant by his answer. 

#

It’s a regular day. The sky is a bit gloomy and Neil a bit more agitated than usual. He slept badly, waking in the middle of the night and calling for Andrew for the first time. He'd been panicking badly, hardly able to get the name out and less able to breathe, and Andrew had talked and talked about nothing and everything until Neil had calmed down enough he could breathe somewhat steadily again and lay back down. But it’s a normal day. Nothing which points to the contrary. 

Neil stays an extra hour per request to his coach after the rest of the team leaves the court. The man waves him off when Neil tries to thank him, only telling Neil not to blow out any limbs before the game on Friday. Andrew thinks the warning is warranted. He also thinks it’s useless considering who it’s given to. 

Neil works himself to the edge like normal, showers like normal, begins to walk slowly home like normal. He passes by the back-alley of the school when whatever air of normal being sustained is finally interrupted. 

“Fuck off,” someone says, loudly but not quite a shout. There is the sound of scuffling feet and yelling, and then someone is stumbling forward into Neil and leaning all his weight onto him so they both almost fall over, and Neil is panicking, shoving him away and setting up to run, until he realizes it’s just a boy, probably some halfway to a dropout kid that hangs around with the other kids like him after school hours. He’s clumsy on his feet and very clearly high on something. 

“Watch it,” he says to Neil, voice rough and angry. Then he looks up through a curtain of greasy, light blond hair, and his eyes are hollow, tinted a violent red around the edges, and Andrew’s heart stutters to a stop. 

It was him, or someone who looked exactly like him, down to the shape of his scowling mouth and the light scatter of freckles on the bridge of his nose and the shade of his hazel eyes and the deadness in his face. His pupils are blown wide, his entire body trembling slightly and his face glistening in a layer of sweat. Neil looks wide eyed at this version of Andrew, hardly less dead than he but without a doubt alive. He can’t seem to look away. 

“Problem?” He asks, and even the one word is slurred and lazy. Neil works his mouth a few times, gaze flickering to Andrew and then back again. 

“No,” he finally manages to say, though even that sounds pained and stiff. 

“Then fuck off.” And with that he walks away, tripping off the sidewalk and into the street before disappearing around the corner. 

“Andrew…” Neil says quietly. Andrew presses a finger to Neil's wrist, forgetting that he can't touch him, but he's trying to remember how to breathe even when he doesn't need to and trying to remind Neil to breathe too, and even though his fingers phase through Neil reacts almost like he feels the touch anyway. 

“You’re in public," Andrew says, pulling his hand away. "You’re talking to nothing.” 

A ghost of a smile flashes across Neil's pale face, almost as pale as Andrew’s. He leans towards Andrew but doesn’t take his eyes from the direction the other has gone in. “You have a… a twin.” 

Andrew blows out a shaky breath. “Nice deduction, Sherlock,” he says, but even as he does memories, fleeting and confusing, are rushing through his head. He feels like his brain is about to explode. “Get out of here before someone calls the police about a kid talking to thin air.” 

There’s no one outside to do that, but Neil listens anyhow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .'``'.   
>  :o o `.  
>  `. O   
>  `'
> 
> thank u for reading love u


	7. corpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for violence

“Mom,” Nathaniel says. His voice is choked and cracking from disuse. He hasn’t spoken in days. She doesn’t even look at him. 

He has his back pressed to the wall furthest from her and the man she’s tied to a chair. His hands are covered in blood, but it’s not his and it’s not his mother’s. He closes his eyes and tries to block out the sounds his mother is causing the man to make, but he’s loud and begging incoherently and Nathaniel should be better at not letting it bother him because he's seen it all before and worse, but he’s thirteen and it still hasn’t become something he could be used to. 

The man lets out a whimper and then a whine, and then he stops making any sound at all. Nathaniel opens his eyes and watches as his mother wipes the edge of her knife on her pant leg. 

“Alex,” she says, looking at him finally. “Come here.” 

He wants to say he won’t. He wants to open the door and walk out and forget everything that's happened even though it’s sure to get him killed, by his father’s men or just as likely by his mother. But her voice makes him as compliant as ever. As he gets closer he sees a pale and glowing figure begin to rise from the man’s body. He’s dead then.

“I’m going to show you something. It’s important you learn to do this.” 

“You killed him,” Nathaniel says. His mother eyes him like she’s trying to predict if he’ll have a panic attack or not. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, setting the knife in her hand aside and taking him by the shoulder, guiding him to where the quietly moaning figure has half emerged from the man’s corpse. “He will be desperate to pass on, but we can stop him from being able to. I’m going to teach you how. Don’t let him go until he answers your questions.” 

“I don’t…” Nathaniel swallows the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to do this. His mother valued living so much, but this life was disposable, and he didn't understand. “I don’t have any questions.” 

His mother tugs at him to bring him closer and grabs his trembling hand, lifting it up and squeezing it. He doesn’t think it’s meant to be a comfort, but even it was it wouldn’t be. “I do.” 


	8. v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SOoOOO MUChHCH for all the comments and kudos thus far everyone!! i truly deeply very much appreciate all of them and they're really helping me to get a lot of writing done <3 
> 
> non sequitor type writer's note for no reason really so feel free to skip!;
> 
> jkdlsfdj basically i’m very aware that i’m taking a lot of liberties in terms of andrew’s characterization, because characterization in general is something i’ve always been vERy self-conscious about, and andrew in particular is a very delicate character, so i know some people might be like *wrinkly nose* at some of the way i've written him which is TOTALLY FINE very understandable
> 
> but i also kind of wanted to explain a little of my reasoning for writing him the way i do, too. basically, because he’s a ghost now he’s a lot more open. he doesn’t think so much about limiting his words and companionship with neil because neil can’t use it against him (ofc there is still the part of him that's hard to just turn off making it difficult to open up entirely, and the fact that he can't remember much of his life). also he just kind of likes neil, or like, he tolerates (enjoys*) his company. he's pretty bored bc there's not much to do in his state, and neil is pretty interesting, which actually helps him rationalize why he's being so open with neil, because it is something he knows he never has been and is very aware of and def apprehensive of 
> 
> a lot of the same applies to neil, which is why he's a lot more open with his secrets regarding his parents and life on the run (he hasn't told andrew everything YET though). andrew can't use anything against him and he's pretty starved of companionship, so he figures what the hell
> 
> so yeah! i mean i really wish i was more articulate trying to explain this but i hope it kind of made sense

Andrew watches as Neil pins his fringe out of the way and tugs at a tuft of hair to pull it into a hair tie. He looks younger with his forehead showing, almost like a child, and when he leans forward and moves his head side to side with a clinical look in his eyes and a slight pout to his lips, Andrew has a sudden and uninvited urge to run his hands through the rest of his hair. Neil spares him a glance in the reflection but looks away quickly.  

“Why are you doing this again?” Andrew asks, eyeing the mess Neil’s made of the bathroom counter.

Neil brandishes a purple plastic paint-like brush covered in brown goo like it’s a knife and swings it around for no reason other than to make a mess of the floor. “I’m supposed to blend in.”

Andrew leans forward and inspects the roots of Neil’s hair once more. “Yeah. I guess looking like a carrot-top makes that a feat.”

Neil frowns. “My hair’s red. Carrots are orange.”

“If you say so,” Andrew says.

“I do,” Neil says, and then lifts the brush to his head and begins the process of dyeing his hair a dark and, according to him at least, inconspicuous brown. Andrew can’t see what the color of his hair will do to keep him from catching people’s eye. His face was mostly to blame for that. He wasn’t going to bring that line of thought up though, if not for the fact Neil would probably look at him blankly and uncomprehending, than for the sake of his own dignity.

“So,” Neil says awkwardly, getting some brown on his face and wrinkling his nose a little at it before wiping it off. “Do you… have you- I mean…”

Andrew sighs and floats around Neil to perch above the counter, knees bent like he’s sitting and facing Neil as he works. If Neil stepped a little closer his waist would bump right into Andrew’s knees, or rather pass right through. “I don’t remember anything, Neil.”

Neil doesn’t seem to like his answer, as evident by the slight downwards tug to his mouth, although that could also be from the fact he’s just stained one of the three shirts he owns with a dark and very obvious brown. If he is upset by the answer though, Andrew can’t see why. It’s not like his memories had any effect on Neil or his life. They hardly had any relevance to his own life, or death, anymore either.

“That’s… are you sure, though? I mean, that guy is obviously your twin. I would think seeing him would trigger something.”

Andrew kicks his feet so they phase through Neil’s knee. He shrugs his shoulders. What could he say? That he couldn’t remember the name of his own twin or even that he’d had one before the kid had been shoved right into his face, but that he felt some stupid and unexplainable urge to protect him and also tell him something that felt more important than anything, but that he couldn’t even remember what that was, and so how could it be important at all?

“Maybe we weren’t that close.”

“You were twins.”

“Twins don’t have to be close.”

Neil pulls out one of the many ponytails sprouting from his head and starts dyeing that part of his hair next. He says nothing for a few minutes, and Andrew is content to simply watch him work, but he breaks the silence eventually.

“I have a hard believing you were that kind of brother.”

#

Neil seems more nervous than usual for a few days. It’s not a noticeable thing, but Andrew doesn’t really have anything else to do but notice. He bites his lip so often that coupled with his lack of hydration they start to crack and bleed. He takes a moment too long to respond to Andrew when he talks to him, blinking once or twice before saying anything, like his brain is trying to register the words. During class he stops to stare at his work like he can’t figure it out, and Andrew has to nudge him along with it lest he not finish at all. He tugs at his overgrown but sufficiently dyed hair like he’s afraid the color has reverted back to its original orange (it’s more an auburn, not a red like Neil incompetently insisted, but Andrew isn’t one to say anything). He always seems to need to do something with his hands.

It’s odd enough that it almost worries Andrew and makes him want even more than ever to be able to slap away his hands to keep them from digging nails into the back of his hand, and enough that eventually he asks, blunt as ever but at least attempting to soften it a little.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Neil looks at him from where he’s sitting on the empty bleachers. The rest of the team has cleared out at least a half hour ago, but Neil had stayed, not to practice, but to broodily sit and broodily stare at nothing without so much as an explanation as to why.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been nervous all day.”

“Oh,” Neil says, like he hadn’t noticed, or like he’s surprised Andrew did. He shouldn’t be. He wrings his hands and tugs at his uniform like it’s uncomfortable to wear. “The game’s on Friday.”

Andrew takes a second to register what he’s saying, and then he almost laughs from relief. Of course Neil would be nervous for something like that, instead of the other thousand things he should probably be infinitely more worried about considering who he is.

“It’s just a game.”

“It’s more than that. You know it’s more than that, Andrew. I’m risking a lot to play. I shouldn’t be this nervous, but I want… I want us to do well. I want to win.”

“People like you can’t really afford to _want_ anything.” He doesn’t really mean to say it, and not just because it doesn’t seem like that much of a comfort for an already distraught Neil, but because the words don’t seem like they’re meant entirely for Neil.  They feel like they’re meant for him, and it makes his chest ache in a way he isn’t comfortable with but feels familiar with anyhow.

Neil doesn’t seem to mind the pessimism. He nods his head because it’s true, and they both know it. But it doesn’t seem to perturb him either, because he stands and puffs out his chest a little comically and says, “I’m going to befriend your twin.”

“What?”

“Your twin. I’m going to find him and figure out what happened to you.”

“Why?” Andrew asks. He sounds a little unkind about it, but he can’t really bring himself to care about the tone of his voice right now, and Neil doesn’t look like he cares either.

“Because you don’t know why you’re still here, and you can’t move on without figuring it out.”

 _Move on,_ he says, and Andrew is suddenly angrier than he’s felt in a long time. His cheeks burn and he narrows his eyes at Neil, curling his hands into fists even knowing he can’t do anything about the urge to punch something anyway. He doesn’t know why he’s so angry, because he shouldn’t care, it doesn’t matter, but he can’t really get a grip on it enough to keep the anger out of his voice. “You’re not the fucking Ghost Whisperer, Neil.”

Neil eyes him like he’s trying to figure out if he’s actually pissed or not. Andrew glares back, and then he thinks Neil has no right to talk about moving on when he was so clearly still haunted by everything in his past, and didn’t have a single clue how to stop running from it long enough to figure out how he wouldn’t have to run at all.

“I never said I was,” Neil says.

“You want me out of your hair that badly?”

Neil’s eyebrows furrow. He looks almost lost staring at Andrew, like he’s trying to understand. “No, I don’t. I like that you’re here actually,” he says, and he sounds like a kid, uncertain and a little nervous, and Andrew’s anger dissipates a little. “But don’t you want to get to whatever else there is?”

“I’m not interested in an afterlife.”

“Okay,” Neil says. “I’m still going to find him, though.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

Neil smiles like he’s proud of the answer. “The game on Friday. Everyone goes, even the kids who don’t attend school.”

“He didn’t look like he was very into school spirit.”

“Guess we’ll see.”

#

Andrew watches the crowd of people and realizes Neil was probably right. From where he’s floating, some twenty or so feet above the bleachers, which are filled already even though it’s still a half hour until the game, it looks like everyone in the town showed up to watch. He thinks it’s pretty stupid. He also knows it’s probably going to make Neil nervous, this many people watching him.

He floats back down and through the walls of the locker room, startling an already panicking Neil enough that he drops his helmet.

“Can you not do that?” He huffs, picking up his helmet and speaking in a hushed tone so the rest of the team can’t hear him.

“At least it wasn’t an entire pot of oatmeal this time.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Andrew.”

“No problem,” Andrew says. “You asked me to check and I checked. There are a lot of people out there.”

Neil nods but doesn’t say “I told you so.” There’s a crease between his brows that Andrew wants to reach out and smooth with his thumb. He should really stop wanting to touch Neil so much. It made it worse that he literally couldn’t even if Neil wanted him to.

“It’s not a big deal,” Andrew says.

“It kind of is.”

“You’ll be fine. Break a leg, or whatever.”

“You have a weird way of showing support,” Neil grumbles, but he looks a little less nervous and a little less pale, and from this angle Andrew could argue he was maybe smiling a little.

#

The crowd screams as Neil’s team jogs onto the court. Andrew floats around and eyes the many nacho plates that have been purchased, waiting for the game to start. He finds a place to watch with a good view, and spots Neil, smaller than the rest by a large margin, warming up in the middle of the court. He looks at ease, leaning over to touch his toes and then leaning back so his chest is towards the sky, hands on his hips, though from this distance Andrew can’t say if he really is.

A referee tosses a coin for first serve. It goes to away and the game starts.

Andrew watches it unfold in front of him. Players rush forward and scatter across the court in search of their marks. The first few minutes are rough and unorganized and chaotic. Neil’s team, smaller in both number and stature, takes the brunt of the violence, but it’s not enough to stop them from stealing the ball twice in the first five minutes and scoring once. An eruption of noise rises from the stands, feet stomping and voices whooping. Andrew doesn’t let his gaze wander from Neil.

Somehow Neil plays faster and harder than he had during practice. Andrew wonders if his stamina will hold, but ten minutes in he scores the second goal for the team and doesn’t slow from there. Something was bound to stop his momentum, though, and it comes in the form of a some two hundred pound player.

Neil had the ball snagged and was starting towards the goal. He was close enough to shoot, but the player threw himself into Neil with no restraint and sent them both sprawling. Neil hit the ground loud enough that a sympathetically pained sound echoed from the crowd. And then he just lays there, balled up and not really moving.

Andrew’s breath hitches. He floats quickly towards them, waiting for Neil to get up, but ten seconds pass and the other player is kneeling over him, shaking his shoulder and saying something, and he still isn’t up. Andrew watches as a referee approaches them and hovers over Neil, saying something else. He wants to get closer, but stops himself at the edge of the court.

Finally, Neil raises an arm in signal that he was okay, and Andrew realizes he hadn’t been breathing for the moments leading up to it, not that it mattered if he did. He breathes now, just to make his body relax, takes note to ask Neil about the hit later, and watches as Neil rises shakily from the ground and waves that he’s okay again, earning him a loud cheer from the crowd.

The game resumes. Neil isn’t quite as fast as he was before, but the hit doesn’t seem to have caused any lasting impact. He scores twice more and searches for Andrew in the stands each time. Andrew does nothing to help him find him, but Neil finds him anyhow, and he grins at him before turning back to the game.

They win. Seven points to six. Andrew waits for the players to leave the court and floats a little closer to where Neil is, waiting but not alerting him of his presence yet.

Neil pulls off his helmet and holds it at his waist. His face is flushed and his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He looks like he can’t believe what just happened, eyes wide and face like he’s just seen a ghost, or maybe not a ghost, but like something has just startled him. Until another kid slaps him hard on the back and says, “Good game, Josten.”

He flinches at the contact at first, but realizes quickly it’s a teammate. A smile blooms across his face, his eyes crinkling at the edges and his face flushing a darker pink, and he looks happier than Andrew has ever seen him. “Yeah,” he says, a little dazed. “Good game.”

Andrew gives him a moment to bask in his newfound glory. He doesn’t seem to understand much of his teammate’s sentiment towards him, and it’s a little upsetting to watch his slight confusion when they compliment his playing or say anything remotely nice, but he’s happy nonetheless, nodding and grinning and searching for Andrew. When he finds him, his smile somehow gets bigger. Andrew ignores the pain in his chest and goes to him.  

“I told you it’d be fine,” he whispers as Neil’s coach approaches. Neil only nods, though he looks like he wants to say something, before the man stops in front of Neil.

“Josten. You took a nasty hit there. You alright?”

“I’m fine, Coach,” Neil says, not that he would answer answer differently.

“I’ve never seen a player run as fast as you do. You got some kind of secret?”

“No, Coach,” very serious and a little confused at the question. Andrew snorts. Neil’s coach laughs, loud and rough, and then pats Neil on the shoulder. He flinches at the touch for a second, brief enough that the man doesn’t notice, but that Andrew definitely does. He watches Neil’s profile intensely, taking note.

“You’re practically a prodigy, son. That’s not to downplay all the practice you’ve put in these last few weeks.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Good game, okay? Keep up the hard work. I’ll see you at practice Monday.”

“Yes, Coach.”

The man gives Neil one last pat on the shoulder and a smile, and then walks away to convene with the others.

“Okay?” Andrew asks, because Neil hasn’t moved and still looks a little dazed. He nods and turns to Andrew, his mouth open to say something, when his gaze catches on something behind Andrew and he stills, surprised. Andrew turns around and realizes why quickly enough.

“It’s him,” Neil says, the both of them side by side watching as Andrew’s twin trips over a bleacher with a curse and steadies himself on the ground. He looks just as awful as he did the first time, red-eyed and gaunt. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his black jeans, faded to an almost grey, and he’s trailed by a man with tan skin and dark curls and almond eyes who looks too old to be a student and a lot better and healthier than his twin does. The man looks to be trying to catch up to him, but his twin isn’t stopping. The man reaches out a hand towards him but pulls back just before it wraps around his wrist. Andrew thinks it was probably a smart decision not to touch him.

The man jogs a little and leans down to say something to his twin, gesturing to the tiny student-run concession stand. He doesn’t seem to react to whatever the man’s said, but the man walks away anyway, and his twin stops to wait for him at least.

“Neil,” Andrew hisses, when he realizes that Neil’s taken the opportunity to begin walking towards him. Neil ignores him, purpose in his step. He reaches the twin before Andrew can say anything to stop him, and then seems to realize he has no idea what he’s doing, because he just stands there beside the kid, mouth parted, stupidly silent.

The twin quirks an eyebrow at him but otherwise looks uninterested. He’s twitchy though, his knee locking and unlocking and his hand, when it reaches up to tuck a greasy stand of hair out of his face, trembling violently.

He lets Neil’s silence go on another minute before he loses his patience and asks, not kindly, “can I help you?”

“Um…” Neil fumbles, prompting Andrew to sigh exasperatedly. “I mean, yeah. What’s your name?”

The kid doesn’t look impressed, and he certainly doesn’t look like he’s going to give Neil an answer. Andrew can’t believe how unbelievably unsmooth Neil is for someone who is supposed to have survived a life on the run.

“I remember you,” his twin says finally, slowly like he hasn’t yet figured out the significance of it. “I ran into you the other day.”

“I told you your face was memorable,” Andrew says to Neil, who grimaces.

“Shut up. You said distracting, not memorable.”

“Same difference.”

“Who are you talking to?” The kid interrupts, slightly annoyed. “You some kind of mental case?”

“No, I um…”

“Look, man,” his twin says, running a hand over his face and sighing. “Did Carson send you? Tell him I don’t have the fucking money yet, alright? I will soon. But my cousin is literally ten feet away from us so can you kindly fuck off until I do?”

Neil frowns.

“Leave him alone, Neil,” Andrew says, because he’s pretty sure he understands what’s going on, and it means this is definitely not the time for Neil to be attempting buddy-buddy type interrogation of his identical twin.

“Yeah, fine,” Neil says, though he doesn’t sound happy about it.

“Alright. Bye,” Andrew’s twin says, and promptly walks away. Neil turns around and watches him walk towards the concession stand. The cousin, as it turns out, is the man from earlier, though Andrew can’t see the family resemblance.

“I don’t see the resemblance,” Neil mumbles, watching as the man leans towards Andrew’s twin with a pile of nachos balanced precariously on a plate in his hand and asks him something. The twin shakes his head and waves his hand in dismissal, but the man turns to Neil anyhow with a small and genuine smile on his face. He gives Neil a little wave, and Neil hesitatingly waves back.

“That’s because there isn’t any,” Andrew says as they walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u so much for reading i love you 
> 
> [tumblr](//petalloso.tumblr.com)


	9. vi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: this chapter has p graphic violence in it. hmu on [tumblr](//petalloso.tumblr.com) if you have any specific questions about it i'm very happy to let you know

❝ he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist. ❞  
\- richard siken

* * *

Neil wails loudly and thumps his head onto the floor, defeated. His mess of brown curls sticks up in all directions, ruffled beyond normal from him having ran his hands through it over and over again in frustration. “This is impossible,” he grumbles into the open book.

“Let me see,” Andrew says, and Neil rises from the floor still looking dead-eyed in defeat but with a little more hope in his expression. He shifts his notebook so Andrew, who hovers over it with his body parallel to the floor and a hand to his chin in thought, can see it better.

“You’re using the disk method.The line is perpendicular. You should be using the shell method,” he says after scanning Neil’s work. His handwriting is horrible, practically illegible, but knowing how frustrated Neil is right now he decides not to point it out. It’s a miracle he can even read it.

Neil stares at his work for a moment as if contemplating Andrew’s words, and then he lifts his pencil again and rather aggressively scribbles out his work, mumbling something that sounds like thanks under his breath. Andrew rolls his eyes fondly and continues watching as Neil works through the problem to ensure he doesn’t make any mistakes. He hesitates a few times and looks up to Andrew for confirmation. Andrew nods or points out what he should do differently, and when Neil is finally finished, he flops backwards onto the floor in triumph. His shirt rides up a little, exposing a strip of pale skin. Andrew can spot a deep scar peeking out from underneath the cotton.

“Hey,” he says quietly, floating over to Neil and peering down at him. Neil looks right back at him. “What did your father do to you, exactly?”

Neil’s face darkens immediately, and his expression is almost enough to make Andrew regret the question, but not quite. He didn’t really believe in regret, and watching Neil flinch away from every touch his teammates and coach gave him was concerning enough he thought the question was warranted.

“Why?” Neil asks, clearly defensive. Andrew fixes him with a look that softens his expression a little.

“You flinch every time someone so much as raises a hand. Obviously there’s a reason.”

Neil sighs. He looks more resigned than anything when he opens his mouth to speak. His voice is too empty, too devoid of feeling, for the meaning behind his words.

“It wasn’t just him. Yeah, when I was little, he had his fun with me. I told you, his favorite weapons were knives. There was always a reason, and he never failed to tell me what it was I’d done wrong. Somehow I always provoked him even when I taught myself all the ways to avoid it. There was this one time, we had a little visit to our house. They’d opened a new investigation into his line of work. I knew what he’d do to me if I did anything even remotely suspicious, but I must have twitched a little too much because when the officer finally left he grabbed my mom’s hot iron and smacked it across my shoulder. I remember how my skin looked peeling off.”

Neil rubs a hand on his shoulder as if the memory is causing it to hurt again, and Andrew relates the gesture well to the way the scars on his own wrists sometimes ached when he remembered her.

His mind blanks at the _her._ He’s no idea what his brain is trying to remember but it’s painful and he wants it to stop. He looks at Neil to ground himself, at how Neil has stopped talking like he doesn’t want to go on and is breathing deeply like it’s difficult to. He recalls what the scar looked like when he’d seen it that one time, how it was so much more distinct than the rest of them.

“Your mom hurt you, too, didn’t she?” He asks, because Neil has this faraway look in his eyes and Andrew wants him to come back.

Neil pauses, opens his mouth to say something and thinks better of it before nodding his head in confirmation. Andrew waits for him to go on. It takes him a minute, but eventually he speaks.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand why she did. I was young, and acted stupidly because I felt trapped and lonely, and she was just trying to keep us alive. You can’t imagine how hard it was to keep us alive. But it didn’t stop me from hating her for most of my childhood.”

Andrew can’t really sympathize with the woman. Watching Neil flinch away from every touch was her doing, too, and in his mind nothing justified it. But Neil is laying there with his hands crossed over his belly, staring at Andrew like it’s the only thing keeping him from slipping away from the present, and he looks like he’s hurting. His words, despite the meaning behind them, they are laced with grief, like he misses her. So Andrew says nothing about the woman, nothing about how she had no right, and should never have touched him, and how he would have probably killed her if he knew her now, just to stop her from ever laying a hand on him again. Instead he lets Neil be.

“I’m sorry,” Neil says. Andrew looks at him, confused.

“For what?”

“You look upset. I didn’t mean… it’s not a big deal. She’s gone. My father is too far away to touch me anymore.”

“But you’re still _here._ ” He means that Neil is still in this town, squatting in an empty house with a dead guy who couldn’t even remember how he died. He means that Neil is still running, still dealing with what they did to him. It didn’t matter where they were. His father still kept him from living how he wanted to, how he should be allowed to. His mother’s death wasn’t the end of what she’d done to him. Death was never the end.

But he means also, that Neil is still breathing, and he’s here with Andrew, telling him the sorts of things that regular people didn’t need to tell. He was still alive despite that.

“Yeah,” Neil says, so softly Andrew almost doesn’t hear it. “I am.”

Andrew eyes him carefully, and then he floats a little closer, close enough that he can see the specks of darker blue in Neil’s otherwise electric blue eyes. Neil rises from the floor and sits cross-legged, his hands palm down behind him.

“What is it?”

Andrew makes a vague gesture and then says, “can I see it?”

Neil doesn’t respond but to nod his head and swallow thickly, before pulling his shirt over his head quickly and placing it gently beside them. Andrew watches him do it, and then he looks back to Neil, saying nothing.

“You’ve seen it all before. I don’t know why you have that look on your face.”

“I don’t have any look,” Andrew retorts. It’s probably not true, but he can’t be bothered to school his expression into something more neutral, looking at Neil’s torso.

Neil is right, though. He has seen it all before, the first time Neil had stumbled in here and made a mess of Andrew’s home. The gash on his side is healing well despite Neil’s homemade stitches, though it’s still tinged an angry pink and looks like it hurts a little. In the midst of everything Andrew had forgotten he was playing Exy with the injury, and scolds himself for not scolding Neil about the excessive, or more like obsessive, practice he’d put in. There is a darkening bruise spreading from his ribs down to his waist from the fall he’d taken during the game yesterday (he’d insisted it didn’t hurt when Andrew had asked, but looking at it now Andrew knew it was a lie). There are scars that looked like they’d healed wrong, miscellaneous markings everywhere, all too many for Andrew to count.

He’s seen it all before, but it’s different now, somehow. The first time Andrew has studied each scar with a clinical curiosity and not much more than that. Now, as his eyes scan the mess his parents and life on the run made of Neil’s body, now that he knew the boy behind the scars, he can’t help the ache in his chest, or the anger that burns in it.

And before he knows it he’s reaching out a hand to touch the iron-shaped scar on Neil’s shoulder. Neil doesn’t move away. Instead he leans into it, and they’ve both forgotten Andrew can’t touch him because he’s dead and a ghost and it’s not possible shouldn’t be possible, until he does.

It’s light, barely a brush of his fingertips against Neil’s skin, but it’s there, and it makes both flinch back hard enough for Neil to fall onto his elbows and Andrew to snap his hand back, a shock traveling sharply up his arm.

“I—,” Neil says, but cannot seem to find the rest of his words. Andrew sympathizes, because something in his brain has been knocked askew and is making it difficult to find anything to fill the silence between them. They stare at each other in equal surprise, Andrew with his hand curled to his chest, Neil with his mouth parted.

Andrew looks down at his hand and flexes his fingers. “Did I just…”

“You just,” Neil confirms, not bothering to finish the sentence. He lets out a little laugh that makes it sound like he’s almost about to cry.

“I don’t…”

“Do it again,” Neil says.

“What?”

“Touch me again.” He presses his own hand to the center of his bare chest in indication of what he means. Andrew looks over his face, searching for something to tell him this is a bad idea and that he shouldn’t touch Neil. Maybe it was a fluke, or his nerves acting up, or his imagination playing a joke on him because his stupid excuse for a brain seemed to have developed a stupid little crush on a stupid little runaway.

But Neil looks like he’s serious. Whatever shock he’d felt just a second ago has faded too quickly for Andrew to even believe, because he’s looking at Andrew and waiting.

So Andrew floats close enough that he’s hovering over Neil’s sprawled legs, and he breaks his eyes away from Neil’s to look instead at the scar on his shoulder, and then he lines the tips of his fingers with the raised bumps of Neil’s skin. His hand hovers, hesitant and trembling slightly, before he presses them to his skin.

Neil’s sharp inhale prompts Andrew to look up at him. “Okay?” He asks.

“Yes,” Neil says. “I’ve never met a ghost able to do that.”

Andrew waits a beat and then pulls his hand away and drops it to his side. Neil says nothing about his reluctance to prolong the contact.

“Guess I just exceed all expectations.”

Neil studies him like he doesn’t entirely understand what he is, though his next words are spoken with a confidence Andrew doesn’t think he has ever heard someone use in relation to himself.

“You do.”

#

On Sunday Neil stays in until late at night, lazy and sleeping mostly, at which point his stomach grumbles loudly and he decides it might be a good idea to buy some real food. He leaves his duffel by the door for once.

Neil spends a long time deciding on what to get. He takes his time walking leisurely up and down each aisle studying the foods, something which Andrew thinks he’s never been afforded the time to do. He debates the pros and cons of brands just for the kick of it, though clearly knows nothing about any brands at all, and laughs when Andrew tells him to shut up about the consistency of yogurt and just choose already.

Andrew laughs when Neil trips over his too long pant leg, earning him a scowl from Neil before his mouth inevitably breaks into a grin. He leans down and rolls it up, then continues on his way to the ice cream aisle. Andrew had requested he buy some, knowing full well he could not eat it, but Neil had relented to his request anyhow.

“Maybe you should buy some new clothes,” Andrew suggests.

“What’s wrong with the ones I have?”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

Neil tugs at the edge of his tattered shirt self consciously, and then bites his lip, frowning slightly. “I guess they’re kind of old.”

“That’s putting it gently.”

At the counter, an elderly man gives Neil a onceover. Neil shys under his gaze, paranoid as ever, but the man simply leans in and asks, concern in his raspy voice, “you alright, son? You’ve been looking like you’re talking to yourself.”

Neil’s shoulders visibly sag in relief, and he gives the man a weak smile, scratching the back of his head in feigned sheepishness. “Yeah, thanks. Just trying to remember what my mom put on the grocery list. She’s picky about her brands.”

The man gives him a sympathetic smile and his change, and then Neil grabs his food and heads out the door.

It happens too fast. Andrew would remember later the way Neil’s groceries had spilled out of the bags and onto the sidewalk, the way something red seeped out. He would remember that the sky was already dark and there were no stars out and that neither of them could see the man who’d been standing around the corner of the store, because he was hidden in the shadows. He would remember and wished he had, because maybe then none of it would have happened.

Neil is running before the man can even pull out a gun, but Andrew sees the glint of its metal and knows Neil saw it sooner. Neil, who was always looking for the next threat, always placing himself near the exit of every room and always stiff in anticipation of the next time he’d have to start running, is down a block before Andrew can fully register that the man is chasing after him.

Andrew starts after them, even knowing he won’t be able to do anything if the man catches up. Neil is fast, faster than Andrew has seen him run before, even during practice, and for a moment Andrew thinks, almost relieved, that he’ll outrun the man easily and be entirely fine.

But he starts slowing and rapidly. He is breathing hard and clutching at his side because the injury from weeks ago is still there and all his stupid practice and the fall on Friday probably exacerbated it and he pretended it was fine but now it was going to get him killed, and even as Andrew tells him to hurry, to keep running, his steps only grow smaller.

He’s going too fast around the curve of a street, and just as he’s about to run into an alley, the man tackles him. Andrew hears a crack like broken bones as their bodies hit the wet pavement and slide further into the alley. He doesn’t remember when it started to rain. He can’t feel it on his skin. No one is out. There is not a single soul to come running if, when, Neil cries out for help.

Neil squeezes his eyes shut and groans in pain, and then his eyes fly open again and he begins to struggle against the arms pinning him down to the wet floor. His legs kick violently and his head tosses almost painfully in an attempt to wiggle out from under the man’s weight, but the man is more than twice his size, Neil already small as it is. Neil’s eyes flicker towards Andrew for a second so brief he might have imagined it, something like an apology in his expression, and Andrew can’t seem to move.

At his relentlessness the man lifts Neil up from the ground by his shoulders and slams him back down into the pavement again. The sound the impact makes is so horrid and loud Andrew thinks it must have broken something. The sound Neil makes, a half cry-half whimper, is worse.

Andrew moves forward. He knows logically he can do nothing in this useless form. But it doesn’t matter. He moves forward so fast everything around him becomes a blur in an instant, and then he leans forward.

He is inside the man and the man is atop Neil, who lays there, struggling still but weak and tired and so, so small under his grip. He thinks there are tears streaking down Neil’s cheeks. Or maybe it’s the rain. He feels it on his skin, tiny droplets dripping down his forehead and off his chin and onto Neil’s face.

It takes him only a fraction of a second, too long, to realize his hands are squeezing Neil’s throat and the air out of his lungs, that he’s hurting him, that those weak little gasps is the sound of Neil dying, and it takes even less than that but still too long to fling himself away from Neil, pull out the gun, and shoot himself in the head.

Andrew remembers having an argument.

_Just because someone’s eyes blink a few times after they’re decapitated doesn’t mean they’re still conscious._

_Then why would their lips still move? Maybe they’re trying to scream, or trying to tell the executioner to go fuck themselves._

_Or it’s like when you chop a worm in half and it still wiggles around. The nervous system still functioning or whatever. Don’t you want to be a doctor? Shouldn’t you know this?_

_You’re such a buzz kill, Andrew._

You weren’t supposed to feel anything. It was supposed to be a bullet through the head and you were dead.

He felt it, though.

It was like burning. Like cutting into flesh with a dull knife and then digging fingers into the skin and ripping it apart worse. It lasted long enough that Andrew didn’t think he would ever forget the feeling, and then it was gone.

He was dead, but he felt like he was dying all over again.

The body of the man crumples to the floor, leaving Andrew standing, afloat, where he just shot himself. Bright red mixes with the rain and stains the pavement.

Andrew doesn’t look. He turns back to Neil and floats the distance between them before going to his knees in front of him. He can almost feel the thud of them on the floor though that can’t be possible. He reaches a hand towards Neil but does not touch, even knowing he could, though he wants to so badly it physically aches. He doesn’t know what it is about Neil, that makes him feel so alive when he shouldn’t, when he isn’t. He thinks he hates it.

Neil gasps a little and touches his throat where a ring of purple is forming, where the man had been choking the life out of him. He looks at Andrew and then at the dead man and then back again, and doesn’t look away this time. His eyes are wet with tears. He trembles everywhere.

Andrew doesn’t want to look away from him, but he has to. He turns and dry heaves and even though there’s nothing in his stomach to throw up it still feels like gagging. He wonders vaguely what the point of being dead was when he felt everything just as unpleasantly as when he was alive.

He can feel Neil watching him.

Andrew doesn’t know what’s making him like this, sick to the stomach and with the urge to hurt himself. Maybe it was because he’d just possessed a man, because he’d just taken control of an unwilling body and it disgusted him. Maybe it was because when he had he’d found himself on top of a struggling Neil and it didn’t matter how quickly he’d flung himself off because he could still feel the way his hands had been squeezing his throat, or maybe it was because he’d just shot himself in the head.

Maybe it was because as much as he was repulsed by doing it, he didn’t regret it in the slightest.

_Don’t be like them._

The thought startles him. He doesn’t know where it comes from. He knows killing. Or did he? That too surprises him, because he doesn’t remember why he would kill or who he would have killed. Only that he didn’t question the need to.

Neil was alive. That was worth whatever it meant to keep him that way.

“Andrew,” he says now. His voice is far away. “It’s fine. Andrew.”

He uses Neil’s voice to pull himself back.

“I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re both okay. Andrew.”

Okay is relative, Andrew wants to tell him. Neil was curled into himself, wincing at even the slightest of movement. His eyes were red and he seemed to still be crying, his throat was bruised purple, and all in all he probably could afford a hospital trip.  

“You are not fine,” he says, watching as he tries to get up but falls back down again. “Why did you run?”

“What?” Neil says, giving up on trying to get up.

“You ran instead of fighting back immediately. Why?”

“Is that really important right now?” Neil asks, almost disbelieving.

“Yes.”

Neil frowns. “Because fighting never works.”

“Have you ever tried? All you do is run.”

Neil looks almost angry. He ignores the question and turns to look at the body. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Leave it,” Andrew tells him. “No one will trace it back to a kid that doesn’t even exist.”

“He’s one of my father’s men,” Neil says quietly. “They know I’m here.”

“Or you're being paranoid.” Neil ignores him and tries again to get up. This time it words. He sways a little but otherwise stays standing. Andrew’s brain, inconvenient and irrelevant as always, remembers he dropped his groceries and is therefore probably not eating tonight.

Neil begins walking away. Andrew follows, but he doesn’t pry for an answer. He doesn’t know what he wants of one anyhow.

After a while, Neil says, “better to be paranoid than dead.”  

#

He’s shaking when he finally shuts the door behind him, and doesn’t stop on his way to the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” Andrew asks, watching as he crouches down and begins shoving the first aid supplies into his duffel. His stupid duffel with the stupid knives Andrew had given to him, the ones he’d decided to leave at home for the first time when he went out, the only time he’d actually shouldn’t have.

“I can’t stay here anymore. They’ll catch up to me. They already have.”

“You’re not leaving.” He doesn’t know what makes him say it. Neil laughs bitterly, and he hates the sound.

“You don’t have any say.”

It almost hurts to hear it, but Andrew disregards that, and remembers his words the first time they’d met.

_I will think of something._

“You can’t leave because you still owe me.”

It shouldn’t have worked. Andrew was dead and couldn’t do anything to stop Neil from leaving, even if he could, somehow and inexplicably, touch him when he couldn’t anyone else. Not if Neil really wanted to. A deal with a dead person didn’t really mean anything. But Neil stills anyway, hand in his duffel. Andrew is satisfied enough that he’s listening and continues.

“Aaron,” he says. The name slips from his mouth so naturally it scares him. “My twin. You need to help him.”

Neil looks at him, confused but at least not running. If he was in the right state of mind he’d probably question how Andrew remembered the name, but given the circumstances he only asks, “help him how?”

“You saw him,” Andrew says indifferently, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture so as to play he didn’t care as much as he did. Neil could probably see right through it, he knows, but it didn’t matter so long as he stayed, and so long as he helped Aaron. “He’ll end up dead on the streets at the rate he’s going. So get him clean.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Get him here, barricade him in the bathroom, and wait.”

“Andrew, that’s insane.”

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “But it’ll work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WiLD (they should probably talk about the whole possession™ thing but granted they're both a little rattled; and also probably the touching thing, which is actually possible for more than one reason but i can't say yet!) 
> 
> thank you so much for reading love u x
> 
> also i’m thinking of changing the title of this fic bc it’s pretty generic and boring. let me know if you have any suggestions though bc i got nothing
> 
> <3


	10. wreck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for abusive language

It’d taken a long time to plan, but Andrew had made a promise, and he was intent on keeping it. Once she was gone, they’d be safe. He’d get Aaron clean. They could find a place together. Maybe they could attend a university nearby after graduation. He would take care of him. Maybe, he thought, things would work out this time. Maybe this time he’d found someone worth living for. 

She doesn’t look at him as they get in the car. Andrew buckles his seat belt and settles in. 

“What?” She says after a minute of silence. Her anger is unprovoked, just as he knew it would be. She needed someone to take it out on, and she’d pick at him until there was excuse enough to take it out on him. “You giving me the silent treatment?” 

Andrew says nothing. 

“Ever since he got here you think you’re  _ fucking _ invincible. He’s nothing, Aaron. Just like you.” 

“He’s not,” Andrew says. He doesn’t know if he means it about himself or about Aaron. He doesn’t know why he bothers with the response. The words are as empty as his voice sounds. 

She barks out a laughs, cruel and loud. “You think he can save you, don’t you? How cute. But guess what? You’re stuck with me, your lovely loving mother, and you’d best be grateful for it. That little psycho is fucked in the head. You don’t want him in your life.”  

Andrew almost smiles. 

“Why the fuck did you send that letter, Aaron? What was going through your pathetic excuse for a brain to think that was a good idea?” 

“I wanted to know him.” 

She laughs again. “Yeah, well, doesn’t look like the feeling is mutual.” 

She was almost right. But it wasn’t purposefully. Andrew wanted to know Aaron. He just didn’t know how to, didn’t even know if he could. He’d figure it out later. Right now what he needed first was to make him safe. 

“I’m leaving,” he says. 

“What?” 

“Aaron and I,” he says. He doesn’t mean the spite in his next words, though it leaks out into them anyway, surprising him. “We’re leaving you, just like you left me.” 

“Like hell…” She starts, and then stops abruptly, realizing. Her eyes are wide when she turns to look at him. “What?” 

Andrew cocks his head to the side and fixes her with a smile. He knows what it looks like, all teeth but still empty. “Looks like you left the wrong son behind this time.” 

She raises an arm. It comes towards his face, but he doesn’t bother stopping it. The light turns red.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :oOOOoooOOOo
> 
> thanks for reading! <3 
> 
> as you can probably tell, aaron is back next chapter
> 
> [tumblr](//petalloso.tumblr.com)


	11. vii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo everyone! sorry for the longer wait this time i've had a few home-life difficulties and was just,, not able to write for a little while!! 
> 
> thank you so much for sticking with this i love you all lots <3

Neil calls in absent on Monday. He fakes a strange, hard-to-place accent and tells the school’s office that he’s too sick to be in for a few days. His voice is raspy from the darkened bruise around his neck, which helps him to sound like whoever he’s trying to. 

When he talks to Andrew it’s in a half whisper, and like it hurts to speak, not that the either of them are too talkative during the hours after he comes home that night. Still, he speaks, and Andrew is strangely grateful except Neil sounds so awful sometimes it makes his chest burn with something like rage all over again. 

He attempts to sleep that night. Andrew watches him peel off his shirt and doesn't bother looking away. His back is bruised a rainbow of colors from where the man had slammed him into the ground, and scratched a little where his shoulder blades protrude. It looks like it hurts something awful, and Neil gingerly lays on his stomach after getting ready to sleep to avoid pressing his back into the mattress. 

He faces sideways with his cheek pressed into the pillow and doesn't close his eyes. Andrew floats over and stills in the air beside him, turned with his elbow beneath his head so as to make the illusion he was laying beside him. The proximity doesn’t bother him. He tries to remember why it might, but comes up blank, so instead peers at Neil, trying to figure out what he's thinking, but doing nothing to break the silence himself. 

“It's a bad idea,” Neil says finally. He doesn’t need to specify what the bad is characterizing. 

“I know,” Andrew says simply. 

“Everything that's happening is just…” Neil pauses, breathing in deeply. He winces like he’s in pain and shifts in a little on the bed. “It’s so much. I can't even keep up.”

“Be more specific.” 

Neil closes his eyes but continues talking. “I mean, I can  _ touch  _ you. Or you can touch me.”

“There’s a difference?” Andrew asks, even though he's smart enough to guess the answer is yes. 

“Of course there is. I can’t figure if it has something to do with me, and the fact that I can see dead people, or something to do with you.” 

“Me,” Andrew repeats, not quite a question. Neil nods. His eyes are still closed. 

“You're not like the others. I thought so when we met. It's like you're  _ more.  _ I don’t understand it. And then you just, you possessed that guy. That’s not… that’s not something you’re supposed to be able to do.” He finally opens his eyes, and looks at Andrew in a way that makes him want to look away, like it’s what’s keeping him from slipping away. He forces himself not look back. 

“You saved my life,” he says. There's something like a thank you in his voice, Andrew knows, but he's sure Neil doesn't know how to say it the way he means, and Andrew isn't sure he would know what to say if he did. 

“I’d be bored to death if you died,” he says. His voice doesn't betray him. He was almost sure it would. 

Neil actually laughs a little, though it sounds a little weak with the damaged throat and recent encounter with near death. “No, you wouldn't be. I'd haunt you to make sure.” 

“You can't haunt a dead person,” Andrew says, and his mouth might be curved upwards a little into just barely a smile. 

Neil raises his eyebrows and smiles back. “Who says I can't?” He says in a voice that’s challenging, like he’d figure out a way even if they knew it really was impossible. 

Andrew says nothing for a long while. Then he asks, softly, “why would you want to?” 

The words are not meant to be vulnerable; they form a question spoken more out of curiousity than anything, or at least out of an interest in what Neil might be getting out of the strange arrangement they’ve worked out so quickly, because Andrew believed in equal exchange, promise for promise and truth for truth, and he wasn’t always certain where the lines of give and take were with Neil. 

He still couldn’t feel time very well, but he’s sure it hasn’t been that long since Neil had stumbled into this house, bleeding and desperate. And yet, it feels like he’s been here all along, like he’s slotted himself into Andrew’s life like he was always meant to be there in the first place, so easily that it frightens him, even more so because Andrew doesn’t even have a life for someone to belong in. 

The question is not meant to be vulnerable. The way he speaks it doesn’t even sound so. Still, Andrew feels something in his chest tighten when he asks it. He isn’t certain he meant to at all, and the lack of control isn’t familiar, and only just barely welcome, and then only because it was  _ Neil _ . 

Neil studies his face for a moment, his expression unreadable, his eyes sharp and bright and relentless. “Because,” he says, and then the next like it’s easy to, like it is one of his truths, “you're the only person I've ever met that made me feel alive.” 

“How ironic,” Andrew says. Somehow he can feel his heart thumping loudly in his ears. He still doesn't understand, why it ached when he was supposed to be dead. What was even the point, then, if he still felt like he was falling? 

Neil smiles. “Maybe that’s just the kind of person you are,” he says. When Andrew fails to respond, he continues. “I shouldn't stay here. And this plan of yours isn't going to work.” 

“Stay and we’ll see.” 

“Okay,” Neil says, and Andrew thinks that for all his stubbornness he is surprisingly agreeable. He’s about to point out as much, but Neil is breathing softly with his eyes closed and his hands curled up by his head, and he’s already fallen asleep. 

#

Neil spends Monday and Tuesday holed up in the house, skipping school and trying to sleep but mostly waking up to nightmares. Andrew notices he doesn't bother catching up on homework, and that whatever belongings  _ had  _ scattered around the house are now neatly packed in his duffel. He’s hyperaware of every sound and checks the window regularly. 

“You should tell me what  _ exactly _ your plan is with Aaron,” Neil says Tuesday. He’s sitting on the bathroom counter with his shirt off again, taking out the last of the stitches on his torso. His back is reflected in the mirror, still bruised a dark purple, but fading at least a little. 

“I don't really have one,” Andrew says, peering curiously at Neil's handiwork. Neil’s hands work deftly, and Andrew is about to ask him how many times he’s stitched and unstitched himself, except Neil doesn’t give him a chance. 

“Seriously?” He says, slightly disbelieving. “Not even a vague outline of one?” 

“You need to stock the bathroom first,” Andrew suggests. 

“Alright,” Neil says with a nod. “That’s something at least.” 

“You seem nervous,” Andrew observes, pointedly looking at where Neil’s just pulled a stitch a little too harshly. 

“Shouldn’t I be? There are a thousand things that could go wrong. He could break out, or someone could hear him trying to. I have to figure out a way to get him here in the first place. What if someone reports him missing? That guy at the game is obviously close enough to him to realize if he’s gone.” 

“Neil, stop.” 

“I can’t. I shouldn’t even be here right now, Andrew,” he says, and Andrew braces himself because he’s heard this same train of thought at least ten times in the past forty-eight hours. He wonders if he’s being selfish, keeping Neil here (and then wonders if selfish is something he has ever been or should be allowed to be), but if Neil really wanted to leave it’s not like Andrew could do anything to stop him. What he could do was keep anyone from hurting Neil again, even if it meant possession. 

“They’ll find me,” Neil goes on. “This is everything my mother told me not to do. Don’t look back and don’t slow down. Don’t ever be anyone for too long. Don’t get attached to anyone.”

“Attached to who?” 

Neil glares at him for a moment, but quickly softens. “You,” he says. Andrew should probably start getting used to his honesty. Neil seems increasingly more unaware of the effect his truths have. 

“I’m dead,” Andrew says.  

“It doesn’t make a difference.” 

Andrew watches him, looking for a lie in his expression, for something to tell him Neil isn’t speaking the truth, but there’s nothing. 

So Andrew says, softly, “your hand.” 

Neil waits a beat, then sets his tweezers aside and puts up one hand, palm facing Andrew, and watches as Andrew aligns his own with it, fingertip to fingertip, skin to skin. 

He’s warm, alive. Andrew shifts their hands and presses a thumb to his pulse, counting the beats of it, and then he wonders whether if Neil looked, he could find his, too. 

“You’re warm,” he says, because the silence stretches on too long.  

“So are you,” Neil replies. 

“Really?” 

Neil nods. “I mean, it’s not really your temperature, but I can feel you, like the leftover heat from being alive.” 

“That makes so much sense.” 

Neil smiles sheepishly. “Mom was always better at explaining those kind of things.” 

“It’s okay,” Andrew says. “I think I get it.” 

Neil brings his hand to hover over Andrew’s chest. “Can I?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says, and then Neil presses his palm to Andrew’s heart, his entire body leaning slightly forward.

“You have a heartbeat,” Neil says curiously.

“Is that normal?” 

“I don’t know,” Neil says honestly. He hovers a hand lower over Andrew’s chest, where his diaphragm is. “Can I?” 

Andrew nods. Neil presses his hand back to his chest, but he moves and then shifts too low, grazing Andrew’s ribs and then touching just beneath them, and suddenly Andrew can’t stand to be touched, but he can’t move. 

“Stop,” he breathes. 

Neil pulls away immediately, putting what distance he can between himself and Andrew by scooching backwards so his back presses against the bathroom mirror. It’s not much, but it’s enough, and Andrew’s chest un-tightens somewhat, though the rest of him is still tense and unable to move. 

“I’m sorry,” Neil says. 

“It’s not…” He wants to say it’s not him, but he doesn’t know if that’s really true, and he doesn’t want to lie. “It’s not your fault,” he says instead, because that is at least something he knows for certain. “I didn’t know I… I don’t like being touched.” 

Neil nods, understanding, and Andrew supposes he probably does, given his background, though at least he knows for what reasons, which Andrew simultaneously wants but is afraid to learn about. 

“We should just… be careful,” Neil says. 

“Careful,” Andrew repeats, and then nods. He’s not sure what else to say. 

#

Neil returns to school on Wednesday. By then the ring of purple around his throat has faded enough for it to pass off as several very strategically placed hickeys, if anyone asks. Andrew cracks a joke about it only for Neil to roll his eyes, though he does admit it’s the only excuse he will likely have. 

His math teacher welcomes him back with enthusiasm, which Neil does not entirely reciprocate. He promises to turn in the homework he neglected to do at home, but she simply waves him off and tells him he can turn it in whenever he likes. 

Neil is distracted that first math class. He stares off into space and fails to respond when the teacher calls on him. His hand holds a pencil but doesn’t finish more than a few problems, and by halfway through the period his eyes are fluttering open and closed and his head is lolling backwards and forwards like he’s about to fall asleep. He really didn’t sleep much, Andrew knows. 

Andrew taps him lightly on the shoulder when he falls just a little too far forwards, and Neil straightens up immediately. 

“Reconnaissance,” Andrew says, because it’s at least something Neil will stay awake for. Neil nods, understanding what Andrew means even from the one word. 

He waits until the bell rings, signalling the end of first period, before gathering his things and rushing out the door after the girl that sits in the desk beside him. Her name is Jessica, if Andrew recalls, and he’s pretty sure she has a mild crush on Neil, judging from the recurring sideways glances she shoots his way during class. He’s pretty sure Neil has never spoken a word to her, but whatever information he’s trying to get, he’s likely going to.

“Hey,” Neil says, tapping her on the shoulder from behind and smiling when she turns to him, acting the friendly classmate. “Um, I’m Neil,” he says, sticking out his hand. 

She takes it gingerly, her expression mildly confused. “I know. You’re the fast one, on the exy team. We’re also pretty much desk buddies. You let me copy from you one time.” 

“Oh,” Neil says, laughing bashfully. “Right, I mean, yeah. I’d just realized I never really introduced myself. I kind of started school a little late and… got nervous the first day. Kind of avoided everyone.” 

“That’s okay,” she says, smiling in understanding. “You seem to have adjusted really well, though. I’m Jessica, just in case you don’t remember.” 

“Jessica,” Neil says. “I know this might seem kind of upfront, but do you know most of the people at this school?” 

Jessica smiles at him and nods her head. “Think so. Were you looking for someone in particular?” 

“Actually, yes. I saw him at the game the other night? He kinda stole my bag. About five feet tall, blond hair, hazel eyes?” 

Jessica laughs lightly. “It’s lucky he’s five feet otherwise we’d have to hire a sketch artist with how many blond, hazel-eyed guys there are. You’re probably talking about Aaron Minyard. He kind of unofficially dropped out after…” She seems to trail off before picking up again. “Well, he doesn’t really come to class anymore, but you’ll probably find him hanging around the back of the school. Pretty sure he uses. Most of the guys he hangs around with do, but I didn’t know he was so desperate he’d start stealing from people.” 

“It’s fine,” Neil says. “I’m just going to ask for it back.”

“Well, good luck. He’s kind of a douche.” 

Neil smiles. Thanks.” 

#

“Do you remember anything else for me to go on?” Neil says, walking around the back of school. He’s skipping exy practice for this, which Andrew has yet to figure out how he feels about. Andrew racks his mind for an answer, and is surprised when he finds one. 

“He tutored,” he says. And then remembers. “Biology.” 

“What, really?” 

“Don’t judge a junkie by his cover.” 

“Are you implying something else with that statement?” 

“Never.” 

“I can sense the sarcasm, you know,” Neil says, frowning. 

“What a useful talent.” 

Neil is just about to give him a retort when he spots Aaron, leaning against the brick wall, exactly where Jessica said he would be. He’s alone, though further down Andrew can spot a group of boys huddled around each other and likely not up to anything particularly scholarly.  

He talks into an old flip phone, his voice angry but tired and scratchy like he hasn’t been using it much. “Tell your dad to fuck off, Nicky. I don’t care what was in the will and I don’t give a shit what he does with the house or whatever’s left in it.” 

He pauses a moment, listening to whoever is on the other line. Something terribly dark flashes across his face, before he says, “go see him yourself,” and promptly flips the phone shut, shoving it back into his pocket. 

Neil walks to close the distance between them, Andrew floating at his heels. Aaron spots him quickly enough, and the look he gives him is the dirtiest Andrew’s ever seen. He leans off the wall and stands with his arms crossed, defensive. 

“Are you serious?” Aaron says, once Neil is standing right in front of him. “I told you I’d let you know when I had the money.” 

“Yeah, actually, about that…” Neil says, rubbing the back of his head and playing the part of a slightly awkward teenage boy. “I’m not actually a dealer. I’m Neil.” 

“Okay,” Aaron says, drawing out the word. “And?” 

“Um, you were in Bio, right?” 

Aaron almost looks amused. “I don’t go to classes anymore.”

“I know, sure. Just, someone told me you used to tutor. Said you were really good.” 

“Well, I don’t do that anymore,” Aaron says. Andrew muses at how the words reference  _ tutoring,  _ rather than something much more suited for them, like maybe using drugs. 

“I can pay you double what you used to charge,” Neil says. He doesn’t even take Biology, Andrew suddenly realizes. He says nothing, though. 

Aaron raises an eyebrow, interested enough that he doesn’t try evading Neil anymore, but very clearly trying not to seem so. “The pay was high to begin with. You got that kind of money?” 

“Yeah,” Neil says, and Andrew knows he’s not lying.  

“Triple,” Aaron says, “and maybe I’ll think about it.” 

It doesn’t even take a second for Neil to agree. “Deal.” 

They don’t shake on it, but it’s a start. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is a p big chapter i think so djskal looking forward


	12. ix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fun time 
> 
> (this chapter has some p hostile language in it. if u need more specifics hmu on tumblr [@petalloso](//petalloso.tumblr.com/))

“No, that’s eukaryotic. It has a nucleus, see?” Aaron points to said part on the diagram and then leans back in his chair with a sigh.

“Oh,” Neil says. He scratches his forehead with the tip of his pencil and goes to scribble out his previous answer. “Right. I get it now.”

“You’re kind of slow, you know that?” Aaron says, getting up from his chair.

Neil chooses to ignore him and look up to where Aaron is standing, tugging a pack of cigarettes out of his jean pocket. “Where are you going?”

“Taking a smoke break. Finish the rest. I’ll be right back.” He then proceeds to walk right out the library door, flicking a lighter on his way through and earning a glare from the student librarian at the front desk.

“You think he’ll actually come back this time?” Neil asks Andrew once he’s sure Aaron is out of hearing distance.

Andrew hovers over the table and does a few turns out of boredom, twirling so his hair swooshes over Neil’s work. “Considering how much you’re paying him the likelihood is astoundingly low.” Which is an accurate statement if Andrew said so himself.

Neil hums in agreement and then shuts the biology book to pull out his english one instead. He stole the former from the school’s library, since he hadn’t actually had one before asking to be tutored on a subject he didn’t even take. Aaron had yet to figure out they weren’t doing lessons from the actual class. Aaron, Andrew had decided on the first day he’d met with Neil, and probably before that too if he could remember, was an idiot.

It’s only been about five days since Neil’s first session with him. He’d showed up yesterday, a Monday, thirty minutes later than their agreed time, and it didn’t get much better from there. Punctuality, it seemed, was not on his list of strengths, nor was general friendliness or even possessing a semi-welcoming demeanor. But he at least showed up, and at least put in a decent amount of effort, and was arguably good at what he did, showing an impressive amount of patience and knowledge of the subject. Neil was paying him one hundred and fifty dollars an hour, an absurd amount of money for a student tutor, but he’d yet to call him out on it.

Neil reads for a few minutes in silence, Andrew hovering over his shoulder but quickly resuming his twirling after the first few mostly boring paragraphs. He takes to phasing through the table and positioning himself so that his head looked to be on a platter for serving. Neil glances at him now and then, laughing gently before then going back to his reading.

Aaron eventually does come back, a surprise for the both of them. He flops back down on the chair beside Neil and leans back so the legs lift from the floor, closing his eyes as he does so. Andrew scans his body, looking for anything that might be different, that he might have left the vicinity to do (or take), but he looks exactly the same as he did a few minutes ago.

“You should kick the chair,” he says to Neil, because the image of Aaron falling backwards onto the floor is something he can mildly appreciate. Neil gives him a stupid smile but doesn’t acknowledge him otherwise.

“Hey,” he says, tucking his english book back inside his duffel discreetly. He waits a beat for Aaron to give him some kind of acknowledgment that he’s paying attention, (Andrew really, really thinks he should kick the chair out), but when none comes, he goes on anyhow. “We’ve got a test on Wednesday and I don’t feel even close to being ready. I know the school library closes after four, so I was wondering if you’d be able to come over to my place tomorrow?”

Aaron doesn’t look thrilled at the idea. He opens one eye and peeks at Neil with an unimpressed look. The chair balances precariously on two legs still. Andrew desperately wishes he could kick it out himself.

“It’s just the one time,” Neil reassures him. “I’ll pay you extra if you want.”

Aaron pretends to consider it, and finally leans forward, placing all four legs on the floor. “Fine,” he says noncommittally, and Neil actually sighs in relief. Andrew can’t tell if it’s feigned for the purpose of acting like a kid desperate for decent grades, or if he’s actually glad Aaron agreed so easily. Too easily.

“Thanks,” he says cheerily. Andrew rolls his eyes, but Neil doesn’t afford him a glance.

Aaron waves him off and gets back up from his chair. “We’re done for today, I guess. Address?”

“Oh,” Neil says. “Right. We just moved in super recently so… one second. I think I have it written down somewhere…”

Aaron fiddles with his cigarette pack while he waits. Neil eventually hands him a scrap of paper with the address of Aaron's old home written on it. Aaron scans the messy handwriting, and Andrew can actually tell the exact moment he recognizes the address, because his eyes widen ever so slightly and his entire body stills and it takes him one second too long to nod his head. It’s a fleeting reaction, there and then gone again. He’s good at faking, Andrew thinks, and thinks also, that there are too many people in his life, two at this particular moment, who are good at that.

Aaron shoves the paper in his pocket and keeps his hands there. “Time?”

“Is six okay?” Neil asks.

Aaron nods silently, takes one last look at Neil, as though trying to figure him out, and then finally turns and walks away without a word of farewell to him.

“You think he’ll show?” Neil asks once he’s gone.

Andrew shrugs. He wished he had an answer, because it bothers him he doesn’t. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

#

Neil hasn’t actually left the house except to go to school since the incident, but he does today. He is, in fact, currently pushing along a grocery cart, leaning with his chest on the handles and sort of skating along the aisles. He’s still nervous about being in public, and chose a store further away from the house, even though it meant walking the longer distance, or running it in his case. But he’s out, and Andrew is floating cross-legged and upside down beside Neil, listening to him ramble as a distraction to himself. He's going on about Exy qualifications, not a particularly interesting subject for Andrew, but one he listens to intently nonetheless.

Neil eventually stops at the canned foods aisle and squats down to examine the selection. Andrew turns back right side up and phases through the floor so he’s eye level with the bottom rack and what Neil is currently observing.

“Do you like peaches?” He asks, tapping said can of peaches with one finger.

“Not really, why?”

Neil leaves it and gets back up, pushing the cart a little down the aisle. “I figured if you didn’t, Aaron wouldn’t either.”

“That’s not really how twins work,” Andrew says. “And why are you shopping like you care?”

Neil shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t want him to think I’m force feeding him?”

“Do you really think he’s going to appreciate you kept his food sensitivities in mind whilst locking him in a bathroom for probably several days against his free will?”

Neil frowns but doesn’t look too upset at Andrew’s mockery. “What about mandarins? Do you like those?”

Andrew sighs, except he can feel his mouth quirking upwards just a little into what he guesses is a smile, and what he is becoming increasingly more familiar with, and speaking of, against _his_ free will. He watches Neil examine the food selection, and it’s ridiculous really, that Neil would actually care enough to pay mind to some kid’s taste-buds while holding him against his will. But it makes sense, that he would.  

“Yeah, they’re fine,” he answers, and Neil smiles to himself before placing three cans of mandarin slices in the cart and moving on.

Andrew moves to hover inside the shopping cart while Neil shops, putting his arms behind his head and leaning back slightly. Neil seems lost in his own head, so Andrew does nothing to break the silence between them. It’s not an uncomfortable kind anyhow, but like the kind between two people who’ve known each other so long that the space between them didn’t need to be filled. It hasn’t been that long, Andrew thinks, and it scares him again that it’s true, and that still they are here.

Neil places a bag of chips right on top of Andrew, and it goes right through him. Andrew glares at him, but he’s also very aware that Neil’s fingers didn’t so much as graze Andrew himself, though they very easily could have.

“What are you thinking?” Neil asks.

“Nothing,” Andrew says. It’s not a lie, he tells himself. It was nothing. It should be nothing. He still doesn’t understand why his brain was making it that way, why he so quickly forced himself to believe it, but it felt safe, and it felt wrong, and it felt like something learned, something he wanted to unlearn but was afraid to.

“Okay,” Neil says easily, and then places another bag of chips right through Andrew.

Andrew leaves the basket to float beside Neil. He thinks about moving a little closer so their sides brush, but doesn’t.  

Neil flashes him a mischievous grin and starts jogging down the aisle, pushing the basket along with him. About halfway down he jumps so his feet rest on the underside, pushes his chest into the handlebars, and raises his hands in the air as he goes skating down. It totters slightly, and he laughs as the whole thing almost goes toppling over, balancing it just in time.

“You’re an idiot,” Andrew tells him, though he can’t quite hide the fondness in his voice. Neil shoots him another smile, his cheeks slightly pink and his voice a little breathy.

“If you hold my shoulder we can go together."

An idiot, Andrew thinks, but he places a hand on his shoulder anyway.

#

Neil paces back and forth in the bedroom, waiting for Aaron to show. He stocked the bathroom yesterday with everything that one douchey teenager might need to survive for as long as it takes for said teenager to come off of whatever said teenager was on. Now he simply had to wait.

Andrew watches from the corner of the room. He’s taken to running his hands through the walls to pass the time, trying to figure out how it could be that his touch was futile on anything other than Neil.

“Maybe he won’t show,” Neil says aloud.

Andrew floats over to him, turning upside down and getting right in his face, his hair dangling at Neil’s chest level. “Then we’ll try again until he does,” he answers simply.

Neil hums something nervously. His eyes flicker over Andrew's face, and don't look away. Finally, he plops down in the middle of the room, sitting cross-legged, and places his hands on his lap. Andrew crosses his legs and hovers down towards the floor, opposite and eye level with Neil, waiting for whatever it is he wants to say.

“You should tell me what you want,” he says, with no transition into the question at all. “And I’ll tell you something of my own.”

 _You_ , Andrew thinks, just as abruptly as Neil's question had been, a perfect match of an answer. _I want you._

Because now that he was dead he could afford to have something he wanted, and he wanted Neil. Because now that he was dead it couldn’t be used against him. Because feeling anything at all was safer when you weren’t alive. Except it didn’t matter, because death was an ultimate consequence and he’d already paid it. Because nothing mattered when you were dead, and everything did when you weren’t.

But it's all too much, so he says nothing. He waits for Neil to break the silence himself, except he doesn’t, because of course he would wait for Andrew to speak, of course he would listen like he deserved to be heard. Of course he would look at Andrew with flushed cheeks and something too warm in his eyes, something he didn’t recognize, and of course he was alive, and a part of Andrew’s life, now that he didn't have one anymore and could do nothing about it. Now that it would mean nothing.

So he says, “I want nothing.”

Neil doesn’t flinch or draw away. His eyes flicker, and he leans a little closer so Andrew can see the color of them even better. Every time he is struck by how blue they are. It shouldn't be possible for them to be so blue.

“I’m nothing,” Neil says.

“You’re not,” Andrew says back, and watches at Neil’s lashes flutter closed and he leans forward ever so slightly, like a flower towards the sun, and Andrew does the same. If he was alive, he might feel Neil’s breath on his cheek. He almost does.

He opens his mouth to ask, because he needs to ask, except just as he speaks the first word there’s a knock on the door that startles the both of them. Neil's eyes open, his gaze lingering on Andrew, and he purses his lips, rising from his place on the floor. He skips two stairs at a time on his way down, going to the door and opening it.

Aaron stands there, looking mildly uncomfortable. His red-tinted eyes are cast downward and to the side, and he has his hands shoved in his pockets.  

“Um, come in,” Neil says, stepping aside to give room for Aaron, who takes a tentative step forward and looks around the front room.

“My mom’ll be home soon,” Neil lies easily. “So I figured we could work in my room?”

“That’s fine,” Aaron says, but doesn’t move from his spot.

The entire thing is awkward at best, and Andrew's heart is still beating too fast but this situation is quickly sobering him up. He almost feels like laughing at how ludicrous it all is. Aaron pretending he doesn’t know this place, Neil pretending he lives in it, the both of them waiting for the other to move. Maybe, Andrew thinks, neither of them belonged here at all. He doesn’t know why the thought hurts to think, but it does, it sends a pang of something aching to his heart.

“Neil,” Andrew says quietly after too long a silence has passed, bringing him out of his daze. Neil tilts his head towards him and hums in acknowledgement.

“Right, you’re right,” he says.

“About what?” Aaron speaks. Both Andrew and Neil turn towards him.

“Um, what?”

Aaron eyes him warily and then breathes another one of his exasperated sighs. “Look. I don’t know what’s up with you or what fucked up issues you’re dealing with, but the whole talking to yourself thing is getting really creepy.”

So, Aaron was more perceptive than he let on, or the both of them had been too caught up in their conversations to pay enough mind to being in public. Either way, Neil was coming off as a mental case to someone he was about to lock up for no non-supernatural reason.

“I don’t talk to myself,” Neil says defensively.

“Right,” Aaron drawls, but he tugs his hands out of his pockets finally, and he seems a little less awkward and a little more comfortable (though not by much), because he takes a few steps further inside the house, prompting Neil to follow.

If he didn’t know any better Andrew would believe Aaron didn’t know the place at all. His eyes scan the walls and floors like he’s a guest taking in a new and unfamiliar place. He follows Neil up the stairs and into the hall, and Andrew hovers after them, bracing himself for what’s about to happen.

He makes it so easy, Andrew thinks bitterly. He’s so stupidly vulnerable. Something in the thought reminds him of another time when that trait of his twin’s wouldn’t have been so much in his favor. It sends an angry spark down his stomach.

Neil stops walking right by the bathroom door so abruptly that Aaron actually bumps into his back.

“The fuck,” he mumbles, stepping back from Neil, who turns to face him. He’s confused, and Andrew can practically feel his nerves rising, him finally realizing something isn’t quite right, that maybe the walls are too vacant and that there are no boxes for someone to have just moved in and that Neil is a puzzle of a boy who lies through his teeth and lied to get him here.

“I’m sorry,” Neil says simply, and then he moves forward and grabs Aaron by one shoulder, using his other hand to tug Aaron’s phone skillfully out of his pocket so fast Andrew’s eyes barely catch the motions and throwing it to the floor. Then he places two hands to Aaron’s shoulders, turns him, and shoves him backwards into the bathroom.

Aaron yells something incoherent and makes a motion to hit Neil, who dodges with ease, backs up and out into the hallway, and slams the door as fast as he can, locking Aaron in with a skillful hand and a piece of wire.

His voice is muffled but entirely coherent through the door. “What the fuck? Let me out!”

Neil ignores him, turning to Andrew. “Now what?”

“We wait,” he answers.  

“Let me out!” Aaron yells again through the door, pounding so hard that it’s sure to hurt later. Neil seems unfazed by the noise, but his expression is pained, as though he is used to the sort of furious and desperate yelling, but not enough to completely disengage himself from it. Andrew takes note to ask him about that particular something later.

“Josten, what the fuck. If this is a joke it’s not funny.” Aaron’s voice is sounding increasingly more coarse, like he’s on the verge of a panic attack.

“What should I do?” Neil asks again, because he’s looking like he’s about to panic, too, and Aaron is getting louder and angrier by the second, jumping from confusion to fury to pleading.

“Just… wait a minute,” Andrew says.

“Who the fuck are you?” Aaron asks angrily through the door. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. Are you a stalker? Some kind of mental case? Hey, answer me.” Aaron pauses for a long moment. Then he goes on, trying his hand at negotiating instead.

“Someone is going to come looking for me, you know. Nicky is going to notice I’m missing. I won’t tell anyone if you just let me out.”

Neil frowns and turns to Andrew. “Nicky… is the cousin?”

Andrew doesn’t know. His head aches faintly, and he searches his brain for any memories of the name or the person associated with it, but there’s nothing.

“Guess so,” he says, because it’s the only possible conclusion to make.

Neil nods. He’s gotten over whatever anxiety he’d been feeling a moment ago, and now looked perfectly calm and spoke perfectly calmly, maybe too calmly, like he’s done this all before. He leans down and picks up Aaron’s phone from the floor where it’d fallen and swipes to unlock it, quickly finding Nicky’s name in the contacts.

Andrew leans over his shoulder to watch what he’s doing. Neil tilts the screen so he can see it better, and scrolls through the messages Aaron and Nicky have exchanged.

There aren’t that many, and they’re sporadic, with days going by before Aaron will respond to a question from Nicky. There are large chunks of text from Nicky himself, mostly worrying about Aaron or sending him sentimental spiels of support or encouragement that go mostly unanswered.

_(11:40) Where are you?_

_(12: 24) Aaron please answer me. It’s been days. Please at least tell me you’re safe._

_(2:03) Fine. Stop texting._

_(4:17) Have you been to the hospital?_

_(4:19) No._

_(4:19) Okay._

And then at the bottom, the only time Aaron had texted first, a question sent yesterday, just an hour after he and Neil had finished their tutoring session.

_(4: 49) How’d your dad sell the house so fast?_

Nicky had only answered with a row of question marks, which Aaron had ignored.

Neil scans the exchange and then begins typing in a new message.

_(6:17) Be gone for a few days. Don’t worry and don’t call._

He pockets the phone, thinks better of it, and places it by the railing of the stairs. Aaron’s voice interrupts again, which is when Andrew realizes that he’s been silent these few minutes. His voice sounds broken and terrible, and he spits the words with a viciousness that is startling. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Neil tears his eyes away from Andrew and takes a hesitant step towards the door, knocking once so that Aaron goes silent.

“If you promise not to attack me,” he says through the door, “I’ll explain everything to you. Face to face.”

Aaron’s silence is answer enough apparently, because Neil slowly unlocks the door and turns the knob, about to open it and step inside.

“Wait,” Andrew tells him. Neil stops even though Andrew has offered no explanation as to why. Andrew sticks his head through the door, phasing through it, and takes a look at Aaron, who is leaning with his back against the right hand side of the wall, running his hands through his hair in a panic and gritting his teeth. He’s trembling, but he’s not holding a toothbrush or razor weapon of any sort, or looking at all like he’s about to “fucking kill” Neil. Neil could probably take him down in a heartbeat if he tried, given how scrawny and unhealthy he looked, but Andrew wasn’t going to risk either of them getting hurt.

He phases back through the door and gives Neil a nod. “He’s fine.”

Neil nods silently, swallows thickly, and finally opens the door, stepping inside. Andrew follows behind.

Andrew knows what Neil is about to say. This wasn’t a part of the plan, to tell Aaron the truth, but he can’t really bring himself to stop Neil. He 's not sure what it is, this sudden need for Aaron to know that he’s still here, but he feels like he’s broken a promise he’d never meant to, looking at his brother's face, and he feels like he wants to tell him he hadn't meant to. He wants to know if he’s remembered.

Neil closes the door gently and stands with his back to it. Aaron only looks at him, silent, his expression devoid of any previous fury or panic, devoid of any feeling at all. It’s a familiar look, Andrew thinks. It’s the mirror image of his own.

Neil clears his throat and speaks. “Just… answer one question for me?”

Aaron grits his teeth and spits out the word like it pains him to. “What?”

“What are you on?”

Aaron’s face twists into something like disgust. He looks like he’s about to punch Neil, but his hands stay by his side. “What’s it to you?”

“Answer the question.”

“If I do will you let me out?”

“Depends on your answer.”

Aaron studies him for a moment and finally relents. “Painkillers.”

Painkillers. Of course, Andrew thinks, and then tries to understand why that would be so obvious. Did his mother take them? Who is his mother? Why does he hate her? Why does he hate Aaron?

Neil breathes deeply and nods once in understanding.

“Andrew,” Neil says quietly, and it takes a beat for Andrew to realize he’s not speaking to him, or asking for him after a nightmare, or speaking his name like he’d known it all his life. He’s talking to Aaron. He’s telling him. “It was his idea to get you sober.”

At first there is only silence. Neil visibly shrinks into himself for the briefest moment before standing tall again, but his eyes travel to Andrew like he’s looking for reassurance. Andrew gives him a small nod.

“Andrew?” Aaron says finally, barking out the name like it’s unnatural on his tongue. He laughs cruelly. “You’re one sick fuck, aren’t you?” He says it with so little energy it’s like he’s telling Neil what the weather forecast is. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” Neil says. “I… I can see him. Ghosts, I mean.” He cringes at the sound of the confession.

Aaron just laughs again, more cruel and bitter than the first time. “Even if you weren’t fucking insane, and we lived in some alternation universe where you _could_ see dead people, who wouldn’t see my brother, because he isn’t dead. Now let me out.”

What.

“What?” Neil breathes.

“Let. Me. Out.” Aaron repeats, but that’s not what Neil means. That’s not…

Neil doesn’t seem to register the request. Andrew can relate, he thinks. His mind has startled to a stop. He can’t stop running the words over and over in his head. They don’t make sense. They shouldn’t make sense.

He’s dead.

He's _dead._

He’s... not.

“No,” Neil says again. “Andrew, I…” He looks at Andrew, and this time Andrew can’t tell if he’s addressing him or Aaron, and he doesn’t think Neil knows either. “What do you mean he’s not dead?”

“I mean,” Aaron says impatiently, “that he’s a fucking vegetable, and that he’s just as good as.”

Neil looks at Andrew, his expression closed off. He’s asking what he should do.

“I don’t…” He doesn’t know. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. He feels his control slipping quickly from his fingers, and it sends everything in his head careening.  

“Why are you doing this?” Aaron says, voice breaking and more weary than angry now.

“I told you why,” Neil answers, but his voice sounds lost.

Aaron snorts. “You expect me to believe you're anything more than a con artist? You wouldn’t be the first. I have money from the insurance and everyone knows it. How the fuck else would Andrew still be on life support. Isn’t that what you want?”

“No,” Neil says. “I have my own.”

“Fine, then,” Aaron says, like it doesn’t matter to him whether Neil does or not, even though it mattered to him an hour ago, which is how and why he was here in the first place. "If he really is here, then prove it."

Neil bites his lips and turns to Andrew, speaking in a hushed voice. “What do I say?” Aaron watches with half lidded eyes, bitter amusement in the curve of his lips.

And Andrew is remembering. He’s remembering the exact words of the promise he made, and keeping it, and remembering the sound of skidding tires and too bright lights and his brother’s voice, accusing him of breaking it.

“Tell him what I promised him,” Andrew says.

“You’ll have to tell me first,” Neil says, though not impatiently. So Andrew does.

Neil almost smiles, though it’s a flimsy thing, and probably more for Andrew than anything. He turns back to Aaron.

“He promised he’d protect you, didn’t he?”

Aaron doesn’t so much as twitch, but his voice is dark, his eyes boring into Neil’s face. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“I can if you believe what I’m saying is the truth.”

Aaron curses. “Ask him why he did it, then,” he says furiously, and then speaks quickly, a flood of words like a dam has broken. “What was killing our mother supposed to accomplish? He took six fucking months… and the whole time, barely spoke to me. What am I supposed to get out of that? That he cared? Was leaving me a part of his stupid promise, too?”

Neil doesn’t faze at the revelation that Andrew is a murderer. Neither does Andrew. He remembers more, a face, wide-eyed and angry, the feeling of his own twisted smile, a flash of light, a sound that screeches in his ears, and then nothing. He knows what he did. He doesn’t regret it, not even looking at the remnants of what his brother had become because of it. He could still fix this.

“He was keeping a promise,” Neil says, his own words. His voice is strong and clear, understanding without needing an explanation from Andrew. “And,” he adds, “‘fuck you.”

Aaron scowls. “Fine. If this is real then what does he want? He did his part, didn’t he? She’s gone. No more mommy to beat me to a pulp.”

“You’re not fine, Aaron,” Andrew says quietly, almost angrily. He thinks Aaron almost tilts his head in his direction, but it must be a trick of the light. He can’t hear him. He can’t see him.

But then he exhales softly, and his eyes flutter closed, and a smile plays on his bitten, cracked lips, though it is still nothing more than bitter and pained. “I guess he really is here.”

Neil looks at Andrew then, and then back to Aaron, surprised. “You feel him?” He asks softly.

Aaron opens his eyes and gives Neil a dead, disdainful look. “Maybe I do. Maybe his pettiness transcends even being comatose. If anyone’s could, it’d be Andrew’s.”

Neil doesn't say anything for too long, like his brain has stuttered to a stop. And then, finally, he opens his mouth, and he laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fdjklas and there it is. aaron doesn't even have a password on his phone,, a mess. all three of them ,, messes 
> 
> thank u for reading i love u v much
> 
> feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](//petalloso.tumblr.com/) i would love looove to hear from you all


	13. care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw; vague suicidal thoughts
> 
> this is more my desire to keep the pattern than anything else lmao

Andrew didn’t care.

He didn’t care. He didn’t. He told himself that over and over, again and again, until it became the only thought that occupied his mind. He didn’t care.

He did care, though. He cared that people thought he cared because he was supposed to, but he felt too empty inside to try to pretend he did anymore.

How do you care for so long and then stop, he asked himself. Well, by realizing no one ever will like you do. The bad keeps on happening and to everything all the time and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it.

He wonders what keeps him here. It might be Cass, he thinks. She would break if he told her the truth. Maybe not, though. He wonders if it's some disgusting self-righteousness, some all-consuming need to give the middle finger to everyone who told him he couldn't. 

But what is the point. He does not see any in speaking, in being, in breathing. He watches things pass by, but he can't bring himself to care. Every word he speaks he thinks what is the fucking point.

There must be one, though. So he decides he'll stick around until he finds it. 


	14. x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boiii do i hope i don't regret not editing this

“Is this it?” Neil tugs his duffel closer to him and tucks his overgrown hair behind one ear, looking upwards to the glowing sign of the hospital with something like nervousness on his face. He bites his lip in habit. Andrew kind of wants to distract him so he won’t, but he’s not entirely sure how to go about that, so he just answers Neil’s question.   

“Looks it,” he confirms, and when Neil takes a hesitant step forward he follows behind, silently.

It’s a relatively busy place, every chair of the waiting room occupied by family and friends with varying levels of worry in their expressions and movements. Some are crying, silently so as not to bother the people around them, and a few are weeping loudly, clearly too distraught to care about bothering anyone.  

Neil takes a long moment to absorb his surroundings and scope out the exits like he always does, and then he breathes in heavily and heads straight for the nurse’s counter, leaning over with a welcoming smile to catch the woman’s attention. She looks up at him and stops what she’s writing quickly, fixing him with an equally welcoming smile. 

“How can I help you?” She asks too sweetly.  

Neil smiles more warmly, but tinges it with a hint of worry, too. It’s a good facade, perfect for the concerned, anxious family member looking to visit their injured loved one. Andrew lets himself admire the acting for a moment. 

“I’m looking for a patient that’s been in your care for…” Neil pauses, though he knows exactly how long it’s been. “Six months, I believe.” 

“Name?’

“Andrew Minyard,” Neil says easily.  

Andrew doesn't expect the nurse to recognize his name given how many patients’ names she likely checks in and sees regularly, but at Neil's answer she frowns slightly, clearly recognizing it. “You're a new visitor. Are you aware of his condition?” 

Neil smiles sadly, brows knitting and eyes watering ever so slightly, and nods his head. “Yeah. I meant to visit earlier, but I’ve been out of town.” 

The woman hums and gives him a small empathetic smile before turning back to the computer and typing something in. “Your relation to the patient?” 

“Foster brother,” Neil says, and waits for the woman to type in his information. 

“Someone’s already in to see him,” she says after finishing, handing him a visitor's pass over the counter, which Neil takes gingerly in his hand and puts on over his head. “But I’m sure he won't mind if you join him.” 

“Oh, okay. Thank you.” 

“Your welcome. He's in room twelve on the fourth floor. You can take the elevator right over there.” 

#

Neil stands outside the door for a long time, just waiting. 

“What are you doing?” Andrew asks, because he’s getting a little fidgety himself, and the way Neil is staring at the white of the door and absolutely nothing else might seem a little concerning for anyone walking by. 

“Just… bracing myself,” Neil says, uncertainty lacing his words. 

“What for?” 

Neil lets out a huff of breath and glances at Andrew briefly before turning away. “I’m about to see your comatose body, Andrew.” 

Andrew frowns, because he’s not following and Neil seems a little frustrated at his lack of understanding. “So?” 

“So I care about you, and it’s not exactly easy seeing someone you care about laying in a hospital bed unable to wake up,” Neil says bluntly, almost irritated. His lips are set in an almost pout, one hand playing with the zipper of his duffel. 

“Oh,” Andrew says. He tries to ignore the slight ache that spreads through his chest from hearing Neil’s words, and instead hovers over closer to Neil and looks him in the eyes. It’s an awkward angle, because Neil is too close to the door and Andrew doesn’t want to accidently brush him, but Neil adjusts so he’s looking, too, and waits. Andrew puts up a hand, eyes flicking from Neil’s face to his loose fingers. 

Neil seems to understand, because he lifts his own hand that is trembling slightly and holds it up a breath away from Andrew’s own, not touching. Andrew closes the space for them, interlocking their fingers easily. Neil’s hands are rough and warm against his own. He’s not sure it’s a feeling he’ll get used to. He thinks fleetingly that he’d like the chance to, but he squashes down the thought as soon as it arises, and squeezes Neil’s hand more tightly in his own. 

“I’m right here. And alive,” he says. “We can figure the rest out later.” 

Neil still looks uneasy, but he nods once, eyes serious, and then his lips quirk up in a small smile. Andrew is tempted to ask what he’s smiling about, but before he can get a word in Neil has dropped his hand and is pushing the door to the room open, stepping inside silently. 

The first thing he notices are the flowers. They look out of place really, wilted and sad and faded. They line the sill of the single window in the room, and though Andrew can’t understand their purpose he figures it does brighten it up a little. 

The second thing he notices is himself. 

The sight is jarring. He hears Neil’s sharp inhale beside him, the way his breath stutters, but he doesn’t take his eyes off his body. 

It’s not really remarkable, or shocking in any way. He’s just lying there, pale and perfectly still. He really does look dead. A large tube makes it’s way down his throat, and various other tubes and wires are taped to the skin of his arms, some snaking beneath the blanket that covers him.  Several machines beep too loudly beside him, presumably keeping him alive, though there’s too much going on on the screens for Andrew to understand any of it. 

When he gets closer, he can make out the green-blue of the veins on his face. His hair is overgrown and greasy and falling to his forehead. The spiderweb of veins on his closed eyelids look almost painted on. He looks breakable. Andrew hates it. 

The third thing he notices is Nicky, sitting on a chair in the corner of the room with a bouquet of roses at his feet and a book in his lap. He’s not speaking, just sitting in silence, and for some reason Andrew appreciates it, especially because he has a feeling that Nicky is the talkative type, even to people who can’t especially talk back. 

His skin is a warm brown, eyes the same shade and with a glaze of worry in them even as he looks down at the novel he’s reading. He looks up at the sound of Neil's soft footsteps, and is surprised for only a brief moment before he smiles warmly in greeting. Andrew can practically feel Neil tense up at the expression, unfamiliar with such unsolicited friendliness from a mere stranger. 

“Oh, hello,” he says, and gets up from his chair, holding out a hand in greeting. “Are you… I haven't seen you here before. Are you here to see Andrew?” 

Neil nods and takes Nicky's hand loosely, shaking it quickly and letting go. “Yeah,” he answers. His gaze wanders to Andrew on the bed, and Andrew watches him try to look away like it hurts him to. “I, uh, got the news late. Been abroad for a while.” 

“Ah,” Nicky says, understanding, not at all suspicious of Neil. Andrew tries to tell himself it’s attributed to Neil’s acting skills, but he thinks this time it might be Nicky’s naive trust in anyone he comes across. “Well, I’m glad you finally got the chance to visit. I’m Nicky by the way, Andrew’s cousin.” 

“Neil,” Neil says quietly. 

“It’s lovely to meet you, Neil.”

#

After a long and awkward exchange in the room, in which Nicky tries to give up his chair to Neil only for Neil to adamantly refuse for five entire minutes, and after Neil fakes some overly sappy speech to Andrew’s comatose body about missing him and the like, Nicky asks Neil out for a coffee, and though he’s reluctant at first, he agrees quickly enough. 

They sit at a quirky little coffee shop across the street from the hospital, two hot mochas on the table. Neil hasn’t touched his. Andrew takes note to remind Neil to eat later. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t at all today. 

“So, you two were in the same foster home together?” Nicky asks. 

“Uh, yeah,” Neil says. “A couple actually. Back in California.” 

“Ah,” Nicky says, smiling and taking a sip from his coffee. He doesn’t seem to know what else to respond with, which Andrew finds uncharacteristic of him even though he doesn’t know the man at all. Still, he’s glad he’s not trying to fill the silence unnecessarily, or probing for details Neil can’t actually give. 

“I never met him, actually, so I don’t really know what he’s like,” Nicky starts. “But Aaron. Oh, do you know Aaron?” 

Neil shakes his head. 

“Yeah, that does make sense. He’s Andrew’s twin brother. They met maybe a year ago, probably after you guys lost contact with him. It’s a really weird story actually, like something out of a movie.”

“Yeah?” Neil says. 

Nicky nods. “I haven’t gotten Aaron to open up to me much about it, but from what I know Andrew was living with a foster family in California, close to the city where Aaron and his mom lived, when someone came up to him at a game, mistaking him for Aaron. You can imagine the confusion when Andrew told him to fuck off.” Nicky laughs. “Well, yeah. Aaron figured out he had a long lost twin brother, but Andrew got himself into juvie before they could meet. He came to live with Aaron and his mom after he got out, but I don’t think they ever got to know each other well before the accident.” 

Neil hums in acknowledgment, gripping the cup in his hand to take a nervous sip. Andrew tries to wrap his head around his much information, but it sounds like something from someone else’s life, not his own. The details are missing. His head kind of hurts. 

“Well, that’s a condensed version of the story,” Nicky says. “I don’t really know all of it. But it’s been six months.” Nicky smiles painfully. “The doctors say people don’t really wake up from his kind of coma. I’ve been trying to take care of Aaron, but he’s kind of gone off the deep end, and doesn’t want my help. I know that, but whenever he’s off the streets, at least he has somewhere to go. I think the only thing keeping him going is the possibility of Andrew waking up.

Nicky hums and takes another sip, pausing as if to collect himself. Something is stuck uncomfortably in Andrew’s throat. He would very much like to swallow it, but it’s stuck. 

“I think he hates him in a way,” Nicky says softly, like he’d spent a long time contemplating the words and wasn’t entirely sure of them even now. “But he won’t leave this city. I said I’d bring him with me to Germany-- that’s where my fiance lives-- if he wanted to. But he won’t leave. He visits but never goes in. It’s just, I don’t know, the whole things seems so unfair.”

“I’m sorry,” Neil says quietly. He’s not looking at Andrew when he says it, but Andrew has a feeling it’s meant for him to. He’s not sure what to think about it. 

“Oh,” Nicky says, waving his hand in casual dismissal, even though his wobbly smile is fooling absolutely no one. “I’m completely fine. Just a little overly emotional. Enough about me though, oh my god, I really just poured out my heart on you.”

“It’s fine,” Neil says with a small smile, and he looks like he means it. 

“Well, what about you, then? Were you and Andrew close?” 

Neil pretends to ponder the question a moment. His gaze flicks to Andrew, to his lap and then back at Nicky. “Yeah,” he says, so softly Andrew almost can’t hear him. “We are.” 

Andrew doesn’t miss the present tense he uses, and for a moment he startles at the slip up, before he realizes that it’s not really one at all. Andrew was alive after all. And even if he wasn’t it would still be true. 

Nicky smiles, warm and open and maybe just a little relieved. Andrew can’t really understand the sentiment he seems to hold for him, because they’d never met, but he finds himself okay with it, maybe even a little grateful, which is a feeling he habitually tries to squash down the moment it arises, only to, after a moment, let it be. 

“I’m really happy to hear that,” Nicky says genuinely. “Aaron didn’t tell me much, but he didn’t seem to be close to many people. I’m glad that you guys were, are.” 

“Me, too,” Neil says. He’s looking at Andrew when he says it.  

#

When Neil gets back home, he goes straight to the bathroom to check on Aaron, Andrew following closely behind. 

Aaron is, miraculously, actually sleeping when he unlocks the door, his head resting against the pillow Neil had provided him, blanket thrown over his skinny frame. He looks awful, his lips chapped and cracked, his face an ashy grey, eyes rimmed a dark red. He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The bathroom smells faintly of bile. Andrew wonders if Aaron has eaten, since he’s probably puked up anything he’d managed to get down previously. He wonders if he can.

Neil kneels down beside him and puts a hand to his forehead to check his temperature. Aaron rustles slightly, smacking his lips before opening his eyes and glaring at Neil, shoving away his hand and putting as much distance as possible between them, which isn’t much, considering there’s a wall right behind him. 

“Fuck off,” he says lowly. 

Neil doesn’t look too bothered by it, and steps back a few feet to give Aaron space as he collects himself. Aaron rubs at his eyes, yawns and then resumes his glaring. It becomes slightly less threatening when his body wracks violently, a chill shaking his shoulders, and he hunches over, coughing a few times. 

“How are you feeling?” Neil asks. 

Aaron looks up at him scoffs. “Why do you care?” 

“I told you already.” 

“Right,” Aaron says, averting his gaze and kicking at the blanket. “Andrew, or whatever. Tell him to fuck off, too.” 

“He can hear you.” 

“Great.” 

Andrew rolls his eyes. Oddly enough, he can’t think of much he’d like to say to Aaron. His memories are still hazy, faded and difficult to understand, even with what Nicky has filled in. But he thinks Nicky was right to assume he and Aaron were never particularly close, or ever had much to say to each other. The knowledge strikes him as contradictory to the fierce feeling he has to protect his twin, so much so it’s a little painful to watch him going through withdrawal, but it’s not a surprising realization. On the contrary, it settles familiarly in his chest. 

Aaron seems used to Andrew’s lack of response, or doesn’t expect to get one at least, because he rolls right back over and grabs the pillow again, resting his head on it and closing his eyes. “Go away,” he says, to Neil or Andrew he’s not sure, but either way the tone of his voice is clear enough. 

Neil obeys. Andrew takes one last look at him before Neil closes the door gently behind him, locking it quickly with one hand. 

“That went… well.” 

“Better than the first time,” Andrew replies. He’s referring to the day before, when Aaron had rather badly attempted to punch Neil in the face and instead shattered the mirror behind him with his fist. He didn’t take kindly to Neil’s attempt at bandaging his bloodied knuckles. 

“Yeah,” Neil nods, a little distractedly. “Let’s hope it stays that way.” 

#

Neil is sleeping, messy hair tucked rather badly underneath a beanie. Every few minutes he lets out the tiniest sound, almost like a snore but not quite, and then sometimes mumbles in between. Andrew listens carefully every time he hears Neil mumble incoherent words to know if he'll need to wake him, but most are just strange musings, about the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse, or surprisingly thoughtful insults to people Andrew doesn’t know, a few sentences that contain his own name and make his face warm despite his ghostly state, and professions of love for inanimate objects, which are limited to his stolen exy racquet and exy itself.

But he sleeps soundly for the most part, and Andrew still doesn’t know what to feel about the way it makes him so calm, like he could fall asleep, too, if it were even possible. He comes close to, and in between sleep and wakefulness his thoughts tell him that only Neil is the kind of person to make that possible.  

#

Neil shops for flowers on his way to the hospital. Andrew floats along beside him as he runs his finger over the petals of each bouquet, assessing the merits of each one with far too much concentration. 

“Why?” Andrew asks again, because he seriously cannot understand why Neil might be getting flowers for him, when he was right there, when there were enough in the room as it was the first time, and when he didn’t particularly care for flowers to begin with.  

“If I run into Nicky. I don’t want him to think I have terrible bedside manners.” 

“I hardly think anything you do will make him stop liking you,” Andrew says truthfully, but he doesn’t argue, instead nodding when Neil holds up a collection of unnaturally orange carnations for his approval. They kind of hurt his eyes to be honest, but he doesn’t feel like waiting for Neil to find something else. 

It’s not Nicky that’s sitting in the chair when Neil goes in, though. It’s a woman. 

She has long blonde hair that falls to her waist, a sweet and open face, slightly aged but youthful still. She radiates warmth, comfort, kindness. Andrew watches her run run a hand lightly over his forehead, not quite touching, listens as she breathes something that makes Andrew stiffen. “A.J.”

Andrew takes a sharp breath and winces at the sound it makes though he knows only Neil can hear him. Because he knows this woman. He knows her. The sight of her makes the scars on his forearms ache sharply, like they are freshly carven into his skin. She makes his skin crawl. She makes him want to go to her, to embrace her. She makes his heart lurch in his throat, threaten to burst from his chest. She makes it shrivel up inside of him, dying. 

“Neil,” he says. “Leave.”

Neil turns his ear ever so slightly towards him in telling that he’s heard. But he doesn’t move yet. Andrew wants to pull him out of this room. He wants Neil to run. Everything about this screams wrong.

“Who are you?” Neil asks, unmoving still.

The woman scans Neil up and down with too observant eyes, before fixing her unflinching gaze on Neil’s face. “Who are you?” She asks in lieu of replying. 

“Friend of Andrew’s.”

“Oh,” she says hesitatingly. “I’ve never met you before.”

Neil shrugs. “Old friend.” 

“Where’d you meet?” The woman asks. 

“Foster home,” Neil answers without a hint of hesitation. He’d always been good at lying, Andrew thinks distractedly. “Who are you?” He asks again, his tone suggesting he won’t take kindly to an aversion of the answer. 

“Neil,” Andrew hisses, at the exact same moment the woman says, “Cass.” 

“Cass,” Neil says slowly, testing the name on his tongue. He looks at Andrew beside him, a question in his eyes. Andrew tries to use the sight of him as something to ground him, but his pulse is picking up pace, and he feels like he can’t breathe. He doesn’t need to, but the sensation is painful, familiar. 

Neil reaches out a hand and gives Andrew a look that Andrew instantly understands, and he reaches back out and hooks his pinky with Neil’s. Neil hides their hands behind his back, turning back to the woman. Cass. 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but can you leave me alone with Andrew?”

The woman, Cass, Andrew thinks, swallows almost nervously and stands from the chair she’s pushed to the side of Andrew’s bed. “I’m sorry, but he’s not staying. I’m taking him home.” 

“Home?” Neil asks, confused and maybe a little scared, just at the same moment that Andrew’s heart monitor starts beeping rapidly. 

He hears Cass cry out “what’s happening,” hears the sounds of the machine beeping loudly, the sounds of nurses rushing in, going to his bedside, barking orders at one another. 

He hears the sound of his own heart in his chest. 

While everyone gathers around his body, trying to keep him alive, shooting him up with drugs with names he doesn’t understand, it’s Neil who turns to him, not to his body, eyes frantic, desperate. He hears Neil above everything, even above his own heart, but maybe that’s because his heart has stopped, maybe that’s because behind Neil, he can see the press of a defibrillator to his bare chest, see his body jolt up violently and then back down to the bed beneath him. He sees himself dying. 

But it’s Neil. His voice. He’s saying something Andrew can’t quite make out, and when Andrew tries to look at him to pull himself back in he finds that everything is flickering out, going black. It reminds him distantly of the flickering lights of a haunted house he’d gone to with Aaron, someone else’s idea stupid idea for them to bond. He almost laughs, but he doesn’t have the energy. He can’t see Neil clearly. When he looks down at himself, his body is flickering like a broken light, solid and then gone again, fading away. He wonders when Neil let go of his hand. Maybe he can’t hold it anymore. 

“Andrew,” Neil says, again and again. Andrew likes the way Neil says his name, carefully, sometimes dropping the first syllable so it slurs out sounding more like ‘drew.” He likes it. He grasps at Neil’s hand, but it’s not there. 

“‘Drew. Stay with me,” Neil says, but his voice is really far away, and Andrew has to strain himself to hear it. And then there’s something like warmth cupping his heart, flooding it with heat, and then he closes his eyes. 

**#**

When Andrew comes to, it doesn’t seem like much time has passed. Someone is sobbing over his body. It’s Cass, Andrew knows, but for now he can’t bring himself to care. Neil is looking on in the corner of the room. He flicks his gaze towards Andrew like he knows he’s there. 

“You’re alive,” Neil says to him, and the sentence is vague enough that no one in the room questions him, if they were even paying attention in the first place. He sounds almost bored when he says it, but Andrew can hear the relief in his voice. He leaves Cass and the room, not looking behind him to see if Andrew is following, and makes his way to the exit. It’s raining. 

“She wanted to take you back to California, but after what happened the hospital isn’t letting her. Your condition isn’t stable enough,” he says, and then, “they restarted your heart.” 

“You did,” Andrew says. 

Neil turns to him. “What?” 

“It wasn’t them. It was you. You brought me back.” 

Neil turns away and looks off at something, at nothing, eyes distant. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it strikes Andrew as something very odd to say. Anyone else would expect some kind of gratitude, some kind of validation for their actions, but not Neil. “It was selfish. I’m sorry.” 

_ Selfish _ , he says. It shouldn’t make his heart do flips, but it does. Andrew hums something like curiosity, and floats in front of Neil to block his vision. Neil doesn’t meet his eyes, though, and it irks him. “Neil, look at me.” 

It takes him a second, but eventually he does, sliding his gaze over to Andrew’s face and fixing him with a blank, emotionless stare. “Not like that,” Andrew says. 

Neil’s brows knit together in confusion, his lips parted, and then his expression softens to something else, and he looks almost like he wants to cry, but he’s smiling smally, too. 

Andrew almost wants to take it back, because it’s too much all at once and he doesn’t know if he can have this. But Neil brought him back, so maybe it’s something more than a vague abstract. Maybe he can. He doesn’t know if he should let himself think so. But in this moment he can’t bring himself to care. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Neil nods. He’s doesn’t cry, Andrew knows. Maybe he did as a child, but neither of them really have much room left for crying. So he isn’t right now, but droplets of rain stick to his lashes and give the illusion of it, dripping down from his cheeks and off his chin. 

That’s when Andrew closes the distance between them. Neil’s breath fans impossibly across his lips. There’s a question in the space between them, one Andrew needs an answer for before he bridges the last of it. One Neil gives with a small and quiet and soft, “yes, Andrew,” because even though Andrew hasn’t yet asked it, he knows anyhow.  

So Andrew kisses him. 

His feet float above the ground, and nothing else touches Neil except his lips to Neil’s. It shouldn’t make him feel this way. He shouldn’t feel like he’s slotting a key into place and turning to unlock the door. He shouldn’t feel like he can finally breathe again, like he’s awake. He shouldn’t feel his heart fluttering lightly in his chest, his stomach pooling with warmth, but he does, and when he pulls away and looks at Neil, he knows it’s the same for him. 

#

They walk home in silence, Neil practically soaking from the rain, but smiling like a child whenever he looks at Andrew, prompting Andrew to shush even though he hasn’t actually spoken. 

Andrew follows him up the stairs to check on Aaron. He isn’t expecting Aaron to tumble against Neil the moment he’s got the door open, or the way he rains a series of punches into Neil’s face, a few Neil fails to block with his arms up in front of him that Andrew knows will probably bruise later. 

“Fuck,” Neil mumbles when Aaron digs an elbow into his stomach, right where he’s just healed from the stitches. Andrew isn’t sure what to do, but something like rage courses through him. He kind of wants to punch his brother in the face. 

Neil manages to shove Aaron off of him, because he’s weak from the withdrawal and smaller than Neil, in both size and statures. He pins his arms to each side of him, just enough to keep him from trying to hit Neil again.  

“What the fuck, Aaron?” Neil asks. Aaron wiggles in his grip in a vain attempt to escape. 

“What the fuck happened to Andrew?” Aaron spits, and Neil actually pauses, eyes widening. 

“You felt it?” 

“Yeah, I felt it. Felt like I was having a heart attack.” 

“He’s fine,” Neil says. “They restarted his heart, but he’s fine now. He’s right here.” 

“Dipshit,” Andrew says to Aaron, and maybe he imagines the way Aaron’s ear turns towards him a little, and the way his mouth curls up into something that is somehow both a smile and a scowl. 

“When are you letting me out of here?” Aaron says gruffly. 

“When you’re clean.” 

Aaron scoffs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for reading! i really, really appreciate everyone who's left kudos and comments it warms my weak fragile little heart i love u guys thank u 
> 
> also non sequitur but i was thinking about neil and andrew kissing and i was like,, wow andrew's feet would float off the ground his knees would be bent a little what a cute,, but also what if andrew gets frustrated bc he can't ground himself with anything so he asks neil first and then wraps his legs around his waist like a koala so he doesn't have to float and kisses him that way


	15. xi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am tire

Neil hangs back in the locker room as his teammates file out onto the court. He’s got his helmet tucked underneath one arm, but the rest of him is geared up and ready for the game, his face slightly flushed from the nerves he gets before the start, right up until he sets foot onto the court and looks more sure of himself than he ever does otherwise.

Andrew watches him fidget with his racquet in one hand, clenching and unclenching his grip. He floats closer so he can look at him better, tilting his head so Neil will look at him, tapping one light finger to his jaw. He doesn’t ask if Neil’s okay, but Neil seems to understand the question is there anyway. Andrew distantly wonders when he got so good at reading him.

“Fine,” Neil says, a familiar answer and one that Andrew takes at face value. He hovers closer still, knees bent and toes pointed downward, watching for the slight upwards jut of Neil’s chin that says he wants to be kissed, how he flutters his eyes closed slowly and leans forward, and then he presses a firm kiss to Neil’s mouth. Neil hums and smiles into it.

“Try not to concuss yourself,” Andrew says once he pulls away, sounding a little more out of breath than he should for such a chaste kiss, for not needing to actually breathe at all. Somehow Neil does the kinds of things to him that make it so that particular part of him, the part where he has no actual physical being, doesn’t so much matter anymore.

Neil laughs, bright and happy, almost like he’s heard the spiel of thoughts that rampage in Andrew’s head, which Andrew cannot even bring himself to hypothetically mind.

“No promises,” he says

 

Andrew watches from the sidelines just as he always does. This is the fourth game of the season, and the third win for Neil’s team if they win tonight. He sits on the bleachers, or more like hovers over them in a sitting like position, which is the best he can do, and watches Neil fly across the field, light and agile and faster than any other player on the field tonight, maybe any other player on any field.

Someone rams into Neil not five minutes into the first half of the game and sends the both of them flying. Neil’s small body rolls a few times, far smaller than the girl who’s hit him, before coming to a complete stop, and Andrew holds his breath for a moment before he is back up again, putting up a hand to say he’s alright and jumping back into the game as soon as it’s called as a fair play.

Somehow he begins to think of his brother, Aaron, locked in a bathroom at home, probably sleeping his way through the rest of his withdrawal but nearly entirely done with it. He thinks about Nicky, the cousin he never met but that somehow still cared enough about him to visit him in a hospital for months and months, and bring a dozen flowers each time, too, like Andrew was awake to appreciate them.

He thinks about Neil, running like his life depended on it out on the court, the way he twists his body to get momentum on his swing and fling the ball into the goal too fast for the goalie to blink. He thinks about the hardness in his eyes sometimes, the way they are entirely devoid of any feeling, desolate and empty and ice blue, and the way he wakes some nights, shaking and trembling from a nightmare he doesn’t have the voice to talk about. He thinks about how differently those same eyes look at Andrew, with a softness that is too much, the way his hands run through Andrew’s hair and how he kisses so softly, mouth open, heart beating fast against Andrew’s chest, alive against he who is just barely. He thinks about how Neil makes him feel more alive than he ever had when he was awake, how he makes him want to wake up for the first time in his life.

Neil scores the winning goal four seconds before the timer goes off to finish the game. Andrew can’t see his expression through his helmet, but as his teammates lift him from the ground and carry him over their shoulders in victory, he imagines it’s something of a proud expression, something happy.

As they let Neil down and start greeting the other team, Andrew watches the crowd. He isn’t sure how he didn’t notice before, though. There’s a man in the mass of people who doesn’t look like the rest, watching the court intently. He dons dark shades, a suit that is much too formal for a high school Exy game, and the firm line of a mouth that is both concerned, and knowing.

Though Andrew cannot see his eyes he watches where he faces, how his head moves to follow Neil’s path, watching him as he makes his way off the court with the rest of the team. It shouldn’t be so obvious really; he could be a simple bystander, someone interested in the fastest player on the court, the final scorer, but something very obvious about him is misplaced, does not belong, and he wants him away from Neil, because no one who recognizes him the way this man clearly does should not be here, not after all that Neil has done to remain hidden.

Andrew quickly goes to him, ignoring the brush of his teammates’ arms through his body. “Neil,” he whispers. “There’s someone who’s been watching you.”

Neil does nothing to respond, not with so many people surrounding him who could hear him even through the mess of noise, but he stiffens beside Andrew, looking over to where Andrew points with a nod of his head.

Something in Neil’s face hardens when he looks. Andrew can immediately tell he recognizes the man, too, but it does nothing to settle the nerves fluttering violently in his stomach. Andrew watches his face for any kind of tell, something which screams that he’s about to take off running, but it’s not like that other time. He does not seem scared, or frightened or terrified or like he’s about to drop everything to run. He seems confused, angry in an abstract sense, like he himself isn’t aware of it, surprised.

He hooks his pinky with Andrew’s on his way back to the locker room, and Andrew doesn’t try to pull away, needing the reassurance himself, too. He is normal through his shower, normal when he towels himself dry, normal when he pulls on loose sweatpants and a sweatshirt that he swims in, though less so than the way he did a few weeks ago. He is normal too as the rest of his teammates leave, clapping him on the back on their way out with one more congratulations.

Only when the the door bangs on his way out, the court lights the only thing to help with the darkness of a late night, does Neil finally address what’s happening, addresses the man himself, who Andrew now sees stands beside them, having stepped out from just beside the door. He doesn’t like how quiet he’d been, how Andrew had hardly noticed until Neil spoke, but he supposes if this man knows who Neil is, then he is a person who would know to make his appearance in such a way.

“Uncle Stuart,” Neil says, voice emotionless. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello to you to, Nathaniel,” the man says, laughing at his quip and pulling up his shades so Andrew can finally get a glimpse of his eyes, shocked to find they are the same blue as Neil’s, though not nearly the same in any way that Andrew particularly cares about. He’s got a strong British accent, evident even by how little he has spoken, and is, apparently, related to Neil. Despite his nonchalance, the easy smile on his face, Andrew doesn’t find him amusing. He finds him a threat.

He sighs when all Neil does is look at him blankly and unfolds a newspaper in his hand, one that Andrew had failed to notice earlier, scolds himself for. “I won’t be the first,” he says, and holds up the paper for Neil to see. Andrew hovers over his shoulder, feels himself go cold at the image he sees in the dim light.

It’s Neil, mid-run, his feet and legs a blur, his helmet masking most of his face, but still him. If you didn’t know him you wouldn’t be able to tell who he was, but his blue eyes pierce through the image, his small body and the way he holds himself, the desperateness that he emits. Anyone who was looking would know.

Neil stares for too long, his body still beside Andrew. Andrew wants to snap him out of it, to shake his shoulders and tell him not to run, not yet, but he’s afraid, too. Finally, Neil swallows hard and looks back up at his uncle. “How old is this?” He asks.

“A few months,” his uncle tells him, rolling the paper back up and handing it to Neil, who takes it without looking. “Columbia’s not too well known, but you were too good to go unnoticed, Nathaniel. You should have known.”

“My name is Neil now,” Neil says, voice emotionless still.

“Okay,” his uncle says, easily agreeing. “I came here to warn you, Neil. Your father may not be out of prison yet, but he still has people that will do his dirty work for him.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Neil says, this time angrier.  

“Be careful.”

“Thanks. You can go now.”

His uncle nods, but right before Andrew thinks he is about to turn and leave, he turns to Andrew, looks right at him when he’d only ever looked past him. Andrew realizes now he was pretending, that he probably had a lifetime’s worth of practice doing it. He realizes he should have realized this too, that Neil’s ability runs in families.

“Try to keep him alive,” he says to Andrew, and though Andrew doesn’t like the man he knows instantly that he wants for Neil to live, that he does truly care. “If you can.”

Andrew can only nod.

#

“What are you doing?” Andrew asks. They are too familiar words; he feels as though he’s asked them of Neil too many times, but he wants the answer still.

Neil is currently shoving the remainder of his belongings into the tiny duffel he owns, not quite frantically but still with an urgency that is nerve-wracking for anyone watching.

“I promised you I wouldn’t run,” Neil says, zipping up the duffel once he gets the last of his clothes stuffed in it, but he sounds more like he’s reminding himself than reminding Andrew. As it was, Andrew hadn’t forgotten.

“So what are you planning to do?” Andrew asks again, hearing the panic in his voice even as he tries to hard to quell it. He wants to know if this will be one more promise broken, and wonders if he should really be surprised by it, but then, he trusted Neil-- he trusts Neil. It was only watching him pack his things, the way that his hands trembled as he flung his duffel over his shoulder, the way he cleaned things now like he didn’t plan on coming back, it’s getting to him, making his stomach churn with nerves and his mind work too fast for any of the rest of him to catch up.

“They’ll catch up to me,” Neil says. “If not now than soon. And when they do they’ll probably kill me.” He makes his way upstairs now, probably to Aaron, which is a whole other thing to think about. Neil’s voice is flat and emotionless, but the shake of his hands on the railing gives him away.

“I can trade my life for secrets,” Neil goes on. “But it can’t just be any one. It has to be the kind that’s impossible to get. You know the saying _‘_ two can keep a secret if one of them is dead?’ That doesn’t apply to me. If I can give them secrets that have been buried, they’ll let me go.”

Andrew stops him with a hand to the back of his neck, the both of them at the top of the stairs. Neil turns to look at him, and Andrew can see the desperation in his eyes. He is forcing himself to believe this elaborate hypothetical that he’d come up with, and Andrew wanted to believe it, too.

But deep down in Neil somewhere, Andrew knew that he knew it wouldn’t work out that way. And Andrew hadn’t the time to force himself to believe that it might. He almost didn’t have it in him to destroy the fragile hope that Neil carried with him, that fluttered in his chest, that had kept him alive all these years alone.

His voice is softer than he’s ever heard it, soften than he thought he could speak, but still laced with something like panic, like anger. “That will not work,” he says.  

What he doesn’t say, is that if Neil gives them one secret they will want more, that it won’t stop, that they couldn’t kill him but they could destroy him just enough that he would be the broken parts of a once whole person, but could still give them the dead secrets they wanted. Andrew knew there was a lot that they could do to him that was worse than death. Neil knew it, too, he is sure.

“You’re not doing it,” Andrew tells him.

“You don’t have a say,” Neil says, but it’s weak and flimsy and broken.

“You owe me,” Andrew tells him. “I do.”

Neil looks at him, weary and transparent, and Andrew wants to force the expression off of him, wants to kill everyone that’s made it so he is able to look that way. He wants Neil to run so he doesn’t have to risk what could happen to him if he doesn’t, but he doesn’t want to let him go.

“What is it you if it works or not?” Neil asks. “It’s not like you’d care one way or another.”

And it’s so stupid, this back and forth, futile conversation, because Neil knows that isn’t true, is twisting the truths they’ve shared with each other to help himself. He’s self-preserving, and he should be, but somehow it still stings for Andrew to hear it.

 _I would,_ he wants to say. _I would care._ But it makes him almost sick to realize, and he hates it, and it scares him more than being alive does. Instead, he says, “if you die I’ll be bored again.”

Neil scoffs, but some color comes back to his face, his mouth twitching into a small smile. “Funny,” he says.

“Neil,” Andrew starts, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers. “Just run. Keep running and I’ll follow you.”

“I’m tired of running. And I made a promise that I wouldn’t. I’m not going to break that.”

This too, Andrew hates, his stubbornness, his blindness, how he is the only person that understands life the way is truly is but still can be so stubborn as to refuse it. Neil closes his eyes slowly, and he breathes like it hurts him to.

“Aaron is almost through withdrawal. There’s nothing I can do for him after that. I’ll take him to Nicky, and then I’ll figure the rest out from there.”

“Now?”

“Yeah,” Neil says, pulling himself free from Andrew’s grip, though not ungently, and going to open the door to Aaron.

Aaron looks… not great, but far better than he had a week ago. He’s blinking himself awake at Neil’s presence, squinting up at him with a scowl already forming his face, his hair squished to one side from sleep. He doesn’t look on the brink of death, at least, and though his eyes are still a reddish color it could be argued that it’s from the irregular sleeping pattern than from anything else.

“Get up,” Neil says. Aaron only grunts in response, looking as confused as his half asleep state can make him be, and rises from the strange cot bed he’s made of blankets and pillows in the corner of the bathroom. He rubs his eyes with a fisted hand, and the motion makes him suddenly look young, as young as he should really, but the difference starkly contrasted to his image before. Andrew thinks how young all three of them are, how strange it is for them to know lives like their own. He doesn’t have the luxury to complain about it, but he can understand what might seem tragic about looking at them.

“What’s going on?” Aaron asks, as Neil grabs hold of his arm and begins tugging him out of the bathroom.

“You’re leaving,” Neil says. “Like you wanted to.”

“What?” Aaron says. He doesn’t move along with Neil, but instead seems to want to linger. Neil tugs a bit, but he remains in place, looking at Neil with something accusatory in his expression. “Why?”

“Because I’m not staying here anymore. If you want to stay locked in a bathroom with no one to let you out, though, by all means.”

Aaron scoffs, begins making his way out, shoving at Neil’s shoulder as he does. “Fuck you,” he says, but there’s very little behind the words, more something to fill the gaps of a response he doesn’t know to give. “Where are you going?” He asks, and Andrew can understand the curiosity.

“Nowhere that should concern you.”

Aaron frowns, tugs at his sleeves in a frustrated way to hide his fingers beneath the fabric. “And Andrew? Does he stay here, but without you here to hang around with him, or does he go with you?”

Andrew studies his brother’s face for any kind of reason why he might want to know. The words themselves, they suggest some kind of concern, as though he is worried, but it’s not something Andrew thought Aaron capable of, not truly, not if it wasn’t in some twisted, self interested kind of way.

“He does what he wants,” Neil says, simply, emotionlessly.

#

Andrew can’t help but think of the comedy of it all, Neil showing up at Nicky’s door without an explanation as to how he knew where he lived (Andrew had remembered after too long spent trying to convince Aaron to tell them), dripping wet from the rain, gripping a stalking, angry Aaron in one arm and offering him to Nicky with a sheepish smile. It’s a strange image, something from a movie maybe, something that would make people laugh from the ridiculousness of it, but it’s them.

“Aaron,” Nicky says, quite like he doesn’t believe he’s really seeing him. And then his eyes widen and his mouth parts and he seems to understand. “Aaron?!”

Neil moves out of the way as Nicky pulls Aaron in by one arm, embracing him in a hug that Aaron doesn’t seem to care for much, given how he wiggles out from under it not five seconds after Nicky embraces him.

“Where’ve you been?” Nicky asks. “Wait, Neil? What are you doing with Aaron? I’m very confused.”

“I found him,” Neil says, not quite a lie, not quite a truth either. Aaron says nothing to the contrary. Maybe he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he doesn’t care enough to. He leaves them both, walking inside Nicky’s small apartment and disappearing around the corner of the hall, probably to go sleep. Andrew watches him go until he is out of sight.

“Sorry,” Neil says, doesn’t elaborate on why. “He’s clean now, though, just so you know. I don’t know how long it’ll last.”

“What…” Nicky says. “Neil, are you okay? You don’t… you look really worried. Do you need a place to stay or something? You can stay here, you know.”

Somehow Andrew isn’t surprised by Nicky’s chosen line of questioning. He doesn’t ask why Neil might be here at all, where Aaron had been, what had happened. He asks if there’s something wrong, because looking at Neil it is so clear something is, even with how good he is at hiding it.

He tries now, just as he always does, to hide it, and at first glance, without knowing him, his easy smile and the shake of his head is easy to take as what it is, a response that nothing is wrong, that he is okay. Nicky, Andrew sees, is not as convinced as most people would be. But it doesn’t matter.

“Don’t worry,” Neil tells him. “I’ve got a place. I wanted to say bye before I head out though, since I’m not sure when I’ll be in town next.”

Nicky frowns, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, and studies Neil further. “Okay,” he concedes after a moment's pause, though the way he draws the word out says he doesn’t mean to be so accepting, that he doesn’t want to be. “But there’ll always be a place for you here, if you need it.”

“Thank you,” Neil says. Andrew gives Nicky one last glance as he follows Neil away.

 

“So now what?” Andrew asks. Neil counts the change in his hand slowly, mouthing the count to himself. He pockets it when done, looks up at Andrew with a weary smile.

“I call my Uncle,” he says. “And then we get on this bus and head to Baltimore.” Neil pulls out his cell and dials a number he must know by heart. Someone answers after two rings.

The conversation is confusing to follow without hearing the other side, but Andrew can understand most of it. Neil will find refuge for the time being. Someone will be sent for him. He’ll give whatever he can. They may or may not let him go, depending on how useful they find the information. It’s not ideal, Andrew thinks, doesn’t trust his uncle all that much to begin with, but it’s somewhere to start. Neil hangs up quickly, pockets the phone, and turns to Andrew to say something.

He doesn’t see it coming. One minute they are alone, waiting by an empty bus stop, Neil slightly damp from a slight drizzle, talking just to fill the silence, and the next a man is upon them, striking with something in his hand. Andrew calls out but it’s a warning too late.

Neil goes down fast, with a startled cry, his knees buckling underneath him, falling off the sidewalk and onto the side of the empty street. The man tumbles forward to grab him, but before he can lay a finger on Neil, Andrew rushes forward.

It’s just the same as the first time, just as horrible. He hates the sensation, hates the control over a body that isn’t his. But Neil is laying on the floor, cradling his head and trying to get up, and Andrew can’t let this man take him, can’t let him hurt Neil more than he already has.

He twists his limbs so they make a sharp crack, feels the pain as if it is his own body but doesn’t care, and is just about to break one arm with the other when he feels a forceful shove, not a physical kind, which makes it stranger, but somehow still a force inside of his body, pulling him apart from the man’s until he is floating again, alone, beside Neil.

The man shakes himself like he’s trying to get rid of a chill, and then he moves forward again towards Neil. Andrew moves to hover beside him, speaking lowly into his ear, a hand on his torso.

“Neil,” he says, trying and failing to keep the desperation from his voice, the panic from his shaking hands. “Get up now.”

Neil makes a low sound in his throat, something horribly pained, and twists his body so he’s facing the dimming sky instead of the floor. His eyes are dazed and glossed over, and he doesn’t look in any condition to fight back. Andrew cradles his cheeks in two hands, floating over his limp body, asking him to look at him, but then the man is upon them again, kicking Neil in the stomach so hard he curls into himself, and Andrew has to shift out of his way so he won’t knock heads with him. Neil coughs loudly, wheezes for breath.

He feels useless. In however long it’s been that he’s been in this useless state of existence, this is the worst he has ever felt, watching Neil on the ground, coughing up small spatters of blood from how hard the man has kicked him, his hands clenched into fists and his jaw in a kind of practiced way, making himself smaller like that’s the only way he knows to get through this. He tries again to get into the man’s body, but something keeps him away, some invisible wall that he can’t break through, and so all he can do is float close to Neil and tell him to get up, to run, give him a voice to anchor himself to.

The man does not continue at least. He heaves Neil up from his shoulders, and Neil, too weak to do more than struggle vainly, is easily carried. He shoves and kicks with what little energy he has left, screams in a hoarse, pain stricken voice, but then the cold, blunt edge of a gun is shoved into his side, and he quickly quiets himself, casting his gaze over to Andrew.

The man doesn’t bother binding Neil’s legs or hands, instead heaving him upwards, the gun still awkwardly shoving into Neil’s side, and pulling him further down the road. Neil struggles the whole way, but the man’s grip is strong, Neil weak, Andrew useless, and the both of them unable to stop the man from shoving Neil roughly into the trunk of a car by the side of the road, the headlights still on and engine still running. Neil goes passively, sliding in towards the back of the trunk and settling, unclenching one hand at his side and wiggling his fingers ever so slightly, telling Andrew to stay with him. He wouldn’t leave, not ever, but in his panicked state Neil still asks.

The trunk closes on them with a thunk, leaving them in darkness. Andrew clenches Neil’s hand in his own, listening to his heaving breath, pressing in close. He’s not a warm body, not even truly alive, but he can provide as much comfort as possible.

“They’re not broken,” Neil says in the darkness when Andrew accidently presses into his ribs and draws out a sharp breath from Neil, voice a hoarse whisper. “I would know if they were. He didn’t kick hard enough.”

“Neil,” Andrew breathes, searching his face. He wants to say more, but doesn’t know what to. He wants to ask if Neil’s ever been here before, and if he has how he escaped. He wants to ask him what to do.

Neil twists his body so his face isn’t pressed so deeply into the dirty carpet of the trunk, but the motion brings a sharp cry from his lips. He swallows the next one, though Andrew doesn’t know why. No one can hear him over the sound of the engine. No one but him.

“What are you going to do now?” Andrew asks him.

“I don’t know,” Neil answers, as honestly as he always does.

“I can stop him,” Andrew says, the words more a question than a declaration, no matter how much he wishes they weren’t.  

Neil shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says, voice broken. “He knows how to keep you out.”

But Andrew doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about logic, or reason, or rationale right now. Neil is biting his lip so hard it bleeds to keep from making a sound as the car jostles violently. His entire body is shaking against Andrew’s, his fingers clenching Andrew’s so tightly his hand is going white, like it’s the only thing keeping him from slipping away. And Andrew doesn’t care.

He tugs Neil’s grip away from him, and Neil asks him again, softly, to not go, but Andrew doesn’t listen. He floats through the trunk and to the passenger seat, and then into the man driving.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t see it coming. Or maybe it’s because Andrew has never been more desperate in his life, more angry, but he has control over him for longer this time, his hands solid against the steering wheel. He remembers Neil in the trunk, how with every pothole he’d smothered a cry, and so he presses gently on the brake, steering the car to the side as he does so.

But something tugs at him again, shoving against his entire being, and Andrew’s hands clench over the steering wheel but only one, the other no longer in his control. His foot spasms, the car jerking and then veering off course, and then he is shoved out again, just as he was the first time.

The man brakes harshly and gets out of the car, slamming the door as he does. He goes to the backside and flips open the trunk, and Neil peers up at him with a nasty scowl, all the fight back in him but maybe only on the surface. Andrew recognizes the tautness in his body, the flight in his eyes.

“Tell your little ghost friend I don’t take kindly to possession,” the man says. “Now get out.”

“I can’t,” Neil grits out. Andrew doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not. He thinks if Neil tried it would turn out not to be. He also thinks Neil is trying to be stubborn.

“I don’t care,” the man says, grabbing his wrists and wrenching. Neil lets out a sharp cry as his legs are dragged, stubbornly limp, out of the trunk. He slumps when his knees give out, but the man pulls him back up.

“Walk,” he says.

Neil looks at Andrew then, softness in his expression even in this moment, and then he turns to the man and glares, the transition so swift it’s almost like whiplash. “I can’t,” he says again.

“You can.” And then the man brings the gun down on Neil’s face, hard. Neil falls to the ground, this time silently, like he’d been expecting it, spits up blood.

The man has more patience than Andrew would have expected, waiting for Neil to walk. It takes five minutes to bridge the short distance from the car into some secluded area in the woods they have parked by. He knows there’s a gun at his back.

“That’s good enough,” the man says, and as soon as he says it Neil drops to his knees, palms slapping onto the floor where he falls forward. “Sit and down try anything. Lola should be here soon.”

Neil stiffens at the mention of the name, blinks slowly like he’s trying to process it. He mouths something that looks like ‘no,’ but if he speaks it is too soft for even Andrew, so near to him, to hear.

“No,” Neil says again, this time whispering it a little louder, though still so lowly Andrew almost doesn’t hear it. He knows the name, and it terrifies him. He shakes his head ever so slightly, licks his lips, eyes darting this way and that in search of an exit he can’t get to, an exit that doesn’t exist.

“Neil,” Andrew says. He does not want to touch him now, not when he’s like this, but Neil is beginning to panic, chest heaving violently, and the man is throwing his gun in the air over and over again just to pass the time, like this is waiting in line at the grocery store, like they kidnap runaway kids every day and Neil is just the next in line. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Neil shakes his head, sets his gaze on Andrew and stays there, anchoring himself. Andrew doesn’t look away. He shakes his head again, harder this time, his hair falling messily into his face, his brow bone caked with drying blood. “She’s my father’s,” he says, does not elaborate, cannot seem to find the words to.

“Okay,” Andrew says, just a woman speaks, voice sickeningly sweet.

“Hello, Junior,” she says, smiling. Neil is still, silent, watching her as she draws nearer. Andrew wants to kill her when she cradles Neil’s chin in one hand, tilts his head this way and that, like she’s inspecting him. She tsks when Neil jerks free, laughs when Andrew tries to stop her.

“I see you’ve got a little tag along,” she says, smiling. “Don’t worry, Junior. You’ll join him soon, yeah?”

Nothing he does will do anything though, Andrew knows, because he tries and tries but she is a wall too thick to break through, but he doesn’t stop because he would sooner never wake up then let her near Neil if he could help it. He can’t help it.

She is cruel, crueler than even Neil’s reaction to the simple mention of her name could have forewarned, and Andrew can do nothing to stop her. She carves intricate patterns into the skin of Neil’s hands and arms, leaves him bleeding out, whimpering smally, chin to his chest, trying to keep himself from making a sound. Andrew holds him but Neil can sparsely ground himself through the pain.

“You’ve been quiet the trouble for us, you know,” Lola says, wiping the blood of her knife off on Neil’s pant leg. “All those little secrets you must be carrying around.”

“I’ll give you them,” Neil says, coughs, voice wet with blood. “You can have them.”

“Oh, I will have them, just after I have my fun.”  

Something breaks inside Andrew then, when Lola carves Neil’s cheeks bloody, when Andrew can only watch and listen to Neil’s cries of pain, to Lola’s cruel laughter. Something is broken, his mind blurring, heart racing, and that something drives him forward, crashes through the wall that has kept him out, into Lola’s body.

For a moment his hands press into Neil’s cheek, drawing blood from him, but then he pulls away so sharply Lola’s arm whips out beside her, and then he is curling in on himself as she fights for control, the both of them twisting her limbs so they should break but somehow do not. In his peripheral, his sight phasing in and out as Lola fights with him, he sees Neil rise from the ground, sees him tripping away, running.

The man is yelling something Andrew can’t make out, waving the gun around, and through everything else Andrew sees it, the way he straightens his back, extends his arms out, grips the gun, thumb on the trigger, teasing it, pressing it.

The bullet is for Neil, who now Andrew sees, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. The bullet is for Neil, but he won’t let it each him. The bullet is for Neil. The bullet is for Andrew.

It hurts. It burns through his chest, feels like it is ripping him open from the inside out. He looks down, expects to see blood gushing out of him, but he is not alive, but he is alive, he is a solid body, he’s been shot, the bullet has not gone through him but it is lodged in his heart he knows because he feels it there but that shouldn’t be possible because he's not alive he's not a body he is dying, he is falling. Neil is catching him. Neil. 

He hears his name. It’s caught in the wind. He tries to catch hold of it, but where his hands had been solid the moment the bullet had struck him they are now nothing again, and only pass through what he tries to grab hold of, letting it drift away. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

Andrew blinks, squinting at the too bright lights overhead. His head feels like it might explode. He doesn't’ recognize where he is, and it instantly sends a wave of nausea and panic through him. He tries to speak, but something in his throat keeps him from being able to, so all that comes out is some pitiful sound like he’s groaning. A spot just to the left of his chest hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before. The rest of him is numb.

“Oh my god,” someone says quietly, somewhere beside him. He’s never actually heard someone mean the words so well. And then there is a face hovering over his, mouth forming the words silently over and over again, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and Andrew looks back up at him, his skin washed out by the too bright lights. Why are they so bright?

“Oh my god,” the man says one last time, and then rushes away from Andrew and to the door of whatever room that he is in. “Someone, a nurse, whatever, he’s awake. Andrew’s awake!”

No shit, Andrew thinks. He tries moving again, more than just an awkward and stiff movement of his neck, but his legs and arms feel heavy and wrong, like they are filled with lead or weighed down by something. His breath is quickening, panic settling in more.

Someone who looks like a doctor and a thousand more people that look like they are helping her hover over him. He kind of wants to stab them all, but they don’t seem to mean harm. They look at him like they can’t believe he exists, and it irks Andrew but he also needs to wait it out, maybe.

“....miracle,” he catches someone saying. “.... shouldn’t be possible….,” another voice murmurs, and Andrew is getting real sick of all this mumjo jumbo, hates the flash of a flashlight into his eyes and the way people are checking monitors, and how long it’s taken him to realize he’s in a hospital.

He feels groggy, eyelids heavy, body heavy, everything heavy and too much. He wants to sleep. He wants to see Aaron, wherever he is. He doesn’t remember what he did right now, but he knows it was worth it.

“... Andrew, you’ve just woken from a coma. You’ll only be awake for a few minutes, but next time you wake try to remember where you are, okay?”

Andrew doesn’t much bother answering. He kind of nods his head in an attempt, but he feels sleepy. He hates all these people around, but it’s almost impossible to ignore the tug at his body, telling him to rest. The man from before is back, hovering over him, concern in his features unlike Andrew has ever really recognized before, and then Andrew closes his eyes.

Right before he finally falls, he remembers something important. But it’s too late to grab onto. Too late to remember when he wakes up.

 

The next time he is awake longer, long enough to register where he is quicker than the first time. He still can’t lift his arms or legs, and it feels so wrong that he kind of wants to fall asleep and never wake up, except apparently he’s done enough of that.

“Andrew,” the man from before says. “I’m your cousin, Nicky.”

Andrew says nothing. He doesn’t know who Nicky is. He doesn’t want to.

“They said you’ll only be awake for a little longer at a time, so you’ll probably fall asleep again pretty soon.”

Andrew doesn’t care. He shifts his eyes to the ceiling and tries to make out something in the white of it. His eyes burn but it isn’t bright enough in the room to blame it on that. The flowers on the windowsill are dried.

“Andrew,” a voice says. He recognizes it, but he doesn’t want to see his face. “Why’d you do it?”

“Not now, Aaron,” the man, Nicky says, hushed like he thinks it makes any difference in Andrew hearing it. There’s a sound like scuffling and a small, affronted squawk. Aaron curses, too lowly for Andrew to make out who or what or why, but he’s sure he understands the gist of it.

 _I kept my promise,_ Andrew wants to tell him, but he doesn’t care what his brother thinks and it seems too childish to speak aloud. So he says nothing. He’s not sure if his voice works anymore. He doesn’t know if he can remember the words. They tell him it will take a long time for him to recall certain things, faces, vocabulary, places he’s been and things he likes. They tell him his muscles have atrophied, and it will take a long time to walk normally again, to be normal again. He doesn’t care. His eyes burn. He closes them and goes to sleep.

 

Andrew goes through the motions. He does what the therapist tells him, works his muscles and exercises his mind. He spends time outside like they tell him, reads like they tell him, speaks even when his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth, like they tell him. He really isn’t sure why he works so hard to get better, but something is telling him that this time it might be worth it.

Nicky is around a lot, maybe a little too much in Andrew’s opinion, but he doesn’t bother telling him to go away. He sometimes brings Aaron too, who says nothing but sits in the corner anyhow. Andrew wants to ask him when and how he got clean, but he doesn’t have the energy to. Cass tries to visit. He tells them not to let her in.

He’s strong enough now to eat bigger meals and push himself around on a hospital wheelchair. It’s boring in the room they give him, too sparse and sad and empty for him to want to spend his time there, so he wheels down the halls too fast to be technically safe in a hospital, and then out the door and into the garden, where they don’t spend enough time trimming the rose bushes and the grass is overgrown, and he stops next to a bench and sits there, alone, watching the people out and about, passing the time like he is, trying to get better like he is.

He doesn’t really notice until the boy is right in front of him, a little off to the right. He must’ve snuck up, which irks him somewhat. Andrew isn’t one to let his guard down ever, but maybe this kid had the practice.

He doesn’t look like he should be standing on two feet, but he is, and looking at Andrew with something like recognition in his eyes. It’s too soft a look, too knowing.

“What’re you looking at?” Andrew says, not kindly. He doesn’t like the way the boy’s mouth quirks up just a bit, like it makes him want to smile but he’s trying not to. He kind of winces at the movement anyway, because it tugs on the healing scars on his face, the kind so stark and terrible that people on the street would stare and ogle at them.

His arms are wrapped in bandages. Not his hands though. His knuckles are burned black, a violent red around them, his fingers sliced in an intricate and purposeful pattern. The boy clenches his hands, and Andrew wants suddenly to tell him not to, because it pulls at the skin and will probably reopen his stitches and make him bleed, but he doesn’t know this boy. He doesn’t care.

He’s got a mop of brown hair but obvious bright auburn roots growing in, electric blue eyes that are tinged red in and around the edges, like he’s spent a long time crying but has finally stopped. He looks hurt, in ways that can’t truly be fixed. He leans too heavily on one side, and Andrew would bet he has a limp when he walks. He breathes like it hurts to.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice cracked and raspy and wrong. “I just… you’re okay.”

“Okay,” Andrew repeats, studies the boy again. Something about him is too familiar, and it scares Andrew. “Do I know you?”

Something falls in the boy’s face, so slight Andrew wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t practiced in paying attention to these kinds of things. It passes so quickly, and then he smiles, apologetic, fake.

“No,” he says, too casually. “I just heard a nurse talking about a patient that woke up after they said he wouldn’t. That’s you.”

“Yeah,” Andrew says. He looks and looks longer at the kid, but his gaze is shifting and he won’t look him in the eyes. His hands clench again. Andrew wants to tell him to stop, that he’ll open his wounds. That he needs to heal properly if he ever wants to play again.

“Alright,” the kid says. It sounds like a goodbye. “Well, good luck, Andrew.”

“Thanks,” Andrew says, but it’s to his retreating back. He was right. He does have a limp. It wasn’t there before, he knows. He doesn’t know how he knows.

Andrew doesn’t remember telling him his name. But they said he’d forget things easily. They said things would come back, eventually.

 

Andrew looks at himself for the first time in the mirror exactly one month later.

His ribs stick out too much, but it’s not as bad as it had been. His hair is growing back, though it’s still too short to run his hands through, and too short to cover the scar on his head, the one that put him in a coma. He’s got a patch of scraped skin on his torso, fully healed but still ugly.

He’s used to his body. He hated it for a long time, but now he regards it more apathetically than anything. It is a vessel. Nothing more.

There’s something he doesn’t recognize though, something he can’t account for but that needs an explanation, one he can’t think of. There’s a scar on his chest, right over his heart, small and round and spidering out ever so slightly. It looks something like a bullet wound, but anything that would have hit him there would have killed him. He would’ve remembered getting it. He doesn’t.

He traces the scar with one light finger. Meets his own gaze in the mirror. He hardly recognizes himself.

Something makes him remember. Maybe it’s the shape of the scar on his chest, the raised skin. He recognizes it but not on himself. His hands are solid, shaking. When he looks in the mirror he expects to be met with blue eyes, but they are only his own hazel ones. The sound of his own name drifts lazily in his head, softly spoken in a voice he does not recognize, a voice he knows. 

He remembers. The feel of lips on his own, hands in his own, a lazy smile, ice blue eyes, self deprecating laughter, his voice. He remembers a runaway, making a promise not to run, making it to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look,,, this story has so many plot holes and continuity errors and strange characterizations and just general randomness that it actually gives me a headache to think abt but also,, yk i wrote it for fun. i promise one day i'm coming back to this and editing the shit out of it to make it something rlly good, but for now, thank u for reading a messy story that i should have planned better but still enjoyed writing. i love u a lot. one more to go.
> 
> on another note!! i just recently learned that bc i'm doing pt i don't have to take orgo next year and i'm,,, so relief


	16. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!

Neil shoulders his duffel and stares at the small dorm room he stands in, two beds shoved to the side and several cardboard boxes already stacked by one. He can’t escape the endless rattle of thoughts in his head telling him this is a bad idea. But his uncle had promised him this was the safest way, for now, was all he could do, so long as he agreed to dispense whatever information he could for however long, that they’d keep him safe. After that, he didn’t know, but this was more than he ever expected the chance to have.

No attachments, he told himself, not anymore and none that he planned to make. It was too dangerous, and he couldn’t afford it even with the safety blanket of his uncle’s resources. He allowed himself a moment to think about the one person he would have liked to keep, but it wasn’t fair to him. Andrew did not know him anymore. He wouldn’t want to, not after just getting his life back.

He allows himself a steady inhale, fills his lungs, and then exhales slowly, doesn’t flinch at the sound of a gentle knock on the open door and an unfamiliar voice behind him.

“Neil, right?”

“Yeah,” Neil confirms, turning to greet the man who’s spoken. He’s tall, probably had at least a foot on Neil, with tan skin and brown hair cropped short, a friendly smile and friendlier eyes, and Neil knows he isn’t dangerous, but something instinctive in him tells him to run anyhow.

He was done running though. He resists the itch in his feet, the nervous tap of his scarred fingers to his thigh, and sticks out a hand before the other man can.

“I’m your roomie, Matt,” the man says, shaking Neil’s hand. It’s warm in his. Neil lets go quickly and gives him a weak smile.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Matt says, still with that friendly smile, and maybe Neil is scared, but he thinks he can be okay with this unsolicited friendliness, so long as he worked at it. “I’m glad you’re here before the start of the semester. It’s a lot to ask, but it really helps us get a head start on the season. Coach likes to have a little get-together with the team beforehand. We’re meeting at the court in a half hour or so.”

Neil nods. “I’ll be there.”

“Cool, I’ll see you then,” Matt says, and Neil thinks the conversation will end there, that he’ll be left alone to settle into his dorm, but then he goes on. “Also, if you want to meet the other newest recruit before the meeting, he went to the roof soon as he got here,” Matt pauses. “I think he’s a bit older, but a freshman same as you, said something about taking a gap year to ‘resurrect himself’? Let me know if you figure out what he meant or if it’s just some weird brand of humor.”

Neil feels himself nod, but he’s slipped out of his body. He doesn’t want to give himself even an inkling of hopeful thought, but even after all these years of things blowing up in his face he still can’t help it. And suddenly he’s rushing out of the dorm room as fast as he is able to run and flying up the stairs two at a time, bursting through the door at the top, which in his hurried state he only distantly registers has been freshly pried open, to the chilly air of late August, to someone standing dangerously close to the edge, a cigarette perched between his lips.

Neil wants to reach out and pluck it from between them. He wants to reach out and touch him. He wants to pull him closer, and then closer still. But Andrew doesn’t knock him, and he won’t recognize the touch as anything more than unwanted, as a threat, and even if he didn’t Neil would not touch him without permission.

Andrew says nothing as Neil walks to him. He doesn’t remember him. He passes him his cigarette though, and watches closely as Neil puts it between his own lips and slowly takes a drag. There is nothing like recognition in his eyes, he doesn’t know him, but Neil wants to look closer, desperate for something to tell him that Andrew might remember.

 _You’re alive,_ he wants to say, even though he’s known it for months. _You’re beautiful,_ he wants to say, even though it’s too much, and he’s known it for months now. His eyes are golden, his skin a healthy shade of tan, tinted pink at the nose and ears and cheeks from the slight chill. He might be smiling, almost, or it might just be wishful thinking on Neil’s part.

He doesn’t remember him, so he waits.

“I should have stayed dead,” Andrew says after a moment that seems to last forever.

“What?” Neil says. Andrew holds out a hand for the cigarette. Neil passes it to him. Andrew takes one more drag and then flicks it across the edge of the roof, looks out and over across it.

“You weren’t a problem, not then. Now you just might be.”

Neil breathes, his chest aching. “You remember.”

Andrew says nothing for another long moment, and then he turns and looks at Neil, and Neil doesn’t understand how he could have missed it before, the knowing in them, the way he looks at him. “Why did you leave?”

“I was a stranger,” Neil says, voice hoarse.

“You weren’t,” Andrew tells him, shakes his head slightly as he does. “I needed time to remember, and to remember that you’re a runaway.” He doesn’t say it, but the insinuation is still there. _You ran, and I couldn’t chase you._

“I’m here now,” Neil says, softly, quietly, afraid of his own words, even though he knows he shouldn’t be.  

“I know.”

“I can leave if you want me to.” He doesn’t say that it would kill him if he did, is relieved at the spark of anger in Andrew’s eyes at the suggestion.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, makes a fist in the hem of Neil’s shirt and pulls him close. Neil lets himself go, wants for Andrew to close the space entirely, but he doesn’t, choosing to wait first.

“Yes,” Neil says, even before Andrew can ask, and meets him halfway.

Andrew gasps softly into it, and it makes Neil smile. He doesn’t move his arms from his side, but Andrew does for him, taking hold of one hand and guiding it up the front of his shirt and to the warm skin above his alive and beating heart. Neil feels the raised skin of a scar, has his own to match from a bullet that grazed his arm and hit Romero before he could kill him, shot from his uncle's gun, though in that moment he'd not cared to live at all. He remembers too vividly a bullet that Andrew shouldn’t have been able to take, a bullet he shouldn’t have, and his eyes burn from the memory but he squeezes them tighter still, and Andrew, like he knows, kisses him harder, too. Neil’s head spins, but he’s never felt more grounded in his life. The itch to run is gone. His heart flutters wildly in his chest. He never wants to let go.

“You taste like fruit,” Andrew says distastefully, pulling away for a moment only to catch Neil’s mouth in his own again.

“And you taste like smoke,” Neil retorts in between a press of their lips. “But you don't see me complaining.”

“Can’t deny a dead man his pleasures.”

“It’s _old_ man, Andrew. And you’re not dead,” Neil says, smiling. “You never were.”

“No,” Andrew agrees. “Don’t plan on it.”

“Good,” Neil says. “Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Quiet,” Andrew says, and then leans in, again and again and again.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end!
> 
> thank you so much for reading this mess of messiness <3 i really am so truly grateful to anyone who stuck around despite everything, and i can't thank you enough. i hope to one day revisit this project with more time and experience and make it better and cooler and greater, but until then thank you so sooo soooo much for reading it the rough way it's in right now. i love you lots and i hope all ur lives are great and beautiful and lovely just like you are 
> 
> xxx

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be messy but i'm super excited to write it because i've had the idea since last september 
> 
> thank u for reading x


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